Primarily, I have been working on transforming data from the format that it is stored in, to a style which is easier to perform analysis on. By streamlining our data curation, we can accelerate secondary research in COVID-19, Visceral leishmaniasis, Malaria and many others. This is a powerful personal motivator and it is thrilling to see the advancements being made in this sector.

Studying at Lancaster prepared me for my career by providing the skills in time management, programming, statistics and machine learning that I now use every day. Specifically, the health-related modules, such as Epidemiology, Medical Statistics and Survival Analysis, have been massively helpful and I have looked back on my lecture notes a number of times since starting my role; the topics you learn at university are relevant and at the cutting edge of research. The world-leading teaching means I can confidently provide statistical support to colleagues and continue to thrive in the workplace.

At the same time, I'm studying for the 13 actuarial exams which need to be taken to become a qualified actuary. These are much more theory based and cover all the actuarial maths and statistics as well as the necessary business knowledge. What I love most about my career is being able to continuously learn. I am able to use some of the Mathematical Sciences knowledge from Lancaster and combine it with new actuarial concepts to see how it applies to the real world. 

I was unsure what I wanted to do after graduating but in the summer before my final year, I was allowed the brilliant opportunity to do a summer internship in Group Theory with the Department. This was a great experience and helped me confidently choose to follow an actuarial path. The statistics modules in my degree have proved very helpful for the actuarial exams. If you’re also considering becoming an actuary, I recommend taking the 'Stochastic Processes' module. All the lecturers at Lancaster provide high-quality teaching and are friendly and supportive. I really can’t recommend studying Maths at Lancaster enough!

My career is contingent on the rapid change and growth in the technology and software field, and I am constantly in contact with new upgrades, features and possibilities in terms of what software can do. What I like most about this role is the strong need for good logic. Just like a mathematical proof requires a step-by-step analysis of what the logical implications are, a demonstration to a customer is the same as the customer needs to be guided through the logic of the software.

Lancaster offers the unique possibility to connect closely with your professors. Whether during classes or in the weekly office hours they are always available to help with not only academic matters but also pastoral matters such as giving perspective and guidance. Lancaster has been an amazing experience for me, and the campus quickly became my home away from home.

In this role, I am challenged to find out (both mathematically and literally) how many trains can run through an area where engineering works will be taking place, and what changes may need to be made to the timetable.

At the beginning of a project, I am given the constraints to work within including what lines are closed, rules the trains must follow, and preferences of how different services should run. There is so much from my degree that I can apply to my work, as it has taught me to break down problems into their key elements by examining both the constraints and the problem itself - just as you would do with a mathematical proof!

The range of different types of mathematics available at Lancaster - from Complex Analysis to Graph Theory - has proved invaluable in my work so far, teaching me to look at problems from different angles and perspectives in order to find unlikely connections.

The most enjoyable thing about my new career has been networking and getting to know my colleagues. My team is full of brilliant and diverse people, who I learn from every day. My experiences on Grizedale’s JCR have translated perfectly into my new role where I have volunteered to take on the informal role of ‘social secretary’ for my team – I have organised an escape room, sailing trip, games nights and even organised our Christmas party in 2022! KPMG have also given me the opportunity to volunteer at several recruitment events, particularly those aimed at reaching university students from disadvantaged backgrounds and improving social mobility. This is an area I am really passionate about and it’s been so rewarding being able to get involved.

The careers service at Lancaster provided support to me throughout my degree, including the ‘Capital Connections’ trips to London and Manchester where I heard from Lancaster alumni who had secured jobs in the city. I made use of all of the help on offer to support my graduate job applications, including CV reviews, mock psychometric tests and mock interviews. More generally, my time at Lancaster provided me with lots of experiences and opportunities to become a well-rounded and employable individual and shaped the stories I used to demonstrate my abilities to employers in interviews.

I then took a nine month sabbatical and completed an MSc in Statistics at the London School of Economics and graduated in 2022. After graduation, I went back to the company and now work as an L1 Consultant. 

The company I work at is a start-up company and has been expanding massively in recent years. Econometrics is an area of statistics/economics that I had never heard of throughout my degree and is quite a niche area of business. As the company has grown, we have a greater degree of freedom to explore new statistical methods and build new tools from scratch using code which help us better visualise and explain the data to clients. We also have client interaction every day and are in close contact with them throughout the whole project so we can also practise more soft skills such as presenting and articulating ideas and client interaction. 

Lancaster helped me build up and practise my maths skills across various different areas. I enjoyed the pure maths side but also chose modules which focused on statistics and more applied mathematics. It allowed me to narrow down what areas of maths I wanted to go into and helped lead me to the job I'm in now which requires very analytical skills in reading models, making judgement calls and building context from the hard numbers to real life business decisions. 

In my current role, I create transport models of the road network and analyse the potential impact of various schemes proposed by both public and private clients. The job also offers continuous learning and personal development, paying for me to attend lectures on transport planning and giving me the chance to learn new code. I have already had the chance to implement what I learned in my degree such as the knowledge I gained from the ‘Graph Theory’ module in my final year. This helped me save time and optimise processes during my work. The skills I learned during my degree such as presentational skills and the ability to explain complex concepts and data sets help greatly in my role today.

Here, I was the direct line manager for departments and shifts of between 50-100 staff. My time studying Maths at Lancaster has helped set me apart at Amazon. I have the knowledge and strong analytical skills that many others in the same role do not.

Following my time as an Area Manager, I moved into a Finance Business Partner role in late 2021. As a business partner, I support sites in their labour planning, performance reviews and CAR budgets, helping to provide data and financial insight to help improve the sites performance and save the business money. This was a role heavily weighted to data analysis which helped grow my skills in various coding languages and analysis software. Once more, having a sound background in maths gave me a head start in this role as I had the prior knowledge from my time at Lancaster in Statistics and Computational Maths.

In March 2023 I was promoted to Senior Finance Analyst, and I now work in the UK team which focuses on automation and large-scale projects. We aim to reduce the workload for Finance Partners across the UK (and later the EU) and identify areas of opportunity or trends for the business at a full UK level.

My role at Microsoft demands a deep technical knowledge of Azure, a hyperscaler designed to deliver IT resources through the internet, powered by Microsoft's global network backbone, with datacentres spanning 60+ regions. Crucially, being a Cloud Solution Architect requires one to be a trusted technical advisor to the customer. This involves ideating architectural solutions for their IT infrastructure, writing code in languages like Terraform and PowerShell to facilitate resource deployment, and demonstrating the capabilities of the platform through Proof of Concepts (POCs).

Having a degree in mathematics in this field truly allows me to stand out. All mathematicians possess an embedded curiosity to delve into first principles and understand how things work; the final answer is never enough. The value of this degree extends beyond its subject matter. It instils the belief that no problem is insurmountable, and I have the confidence that my sharpened curiosity and rationality will guide me to the answer.

Lancaster has been a great place for me, from the tight-knit community on campus, where everything you need is at your doorstep, to the excellent professors who dedicate their time to helping us succeed. If you are curious about the math course or life at Lancaster, please reach out to me on Luke Taylot @ LinkedIn.

I have now lived in Bermuda for 2 years and continue to love the relaxed lifestyle, gorgeous beaches and beautiful weather.

I love how every day is different in my job – it never gets boring, and you are constantly learning and improving. I’ve met some of my best friends through the firm and it has given me the opportunity to travel to different parts of the United States. Also, being able to go to the beach so easily after work always helps!

Lancaster enabled me to gain the skills and experience needed to secure a job at a Big 4 accountancy firm. The careers services they offered were extremely beneficial when attending interviews and assessment centres. They also hosted talks with different firms which offered valuable insight into the application process. Without securing this job, I would not have been given the opportunity to qualify as a Chartered Accountant and move to Bermuda.

After two years there, and completing my Financial Risk Management exams, I moved to Man FRM as an Investment Risk Associate. My role is focused on the investment risk management for clients who invest in portfolios of hedge funds. My role is very broad and utilises many of the fundamentals of statistics and financial maths that I learned during my time at Lancaster. As an Investment Risk Associate, I must think about many factors when managing risks and the solutions to this are always underpinned by mathematics. I believe having a Maths degree from Lancaster has been vital to achieving success in my current role.

Choosing this career path allows me to apply the skills and knowledge I learnt whilst at university and also get exposure to working with clients and a broad spectrum of people. My role involves a wide range of tasks which can include analysing data and deciding how to present this to a client, performing valuations of pension schemes, calculating benefit corrections, and being part of the people leaders' team where I help with our graduate recruitment process and the development of our new joiners.

Over the last 5 years the staff and partners at LCP have allowed me to develop the areas of my interest. I have been involved in a range of work from the moment I started, and I now have the flexibility to peruse the work I enjoy. At LCP I really believe there is a culture to help people develop and reach their full potential. I have always been offered endless support right from my buddy on day one, through exams, general work and currently a speaking club where we can practice our presentation skills.

Since leaving academia, I have been working within the UK defence industry tackling engineering problems on a number of projects involving radar, navigation, electronic warfare countermeasures, and command and control systems.  

I’m currently employed as a systems architect at QinetiQ. Systems architects divide large and complex systems into manageable subsystems that can be handled by individual (or small teams of) engineers. I support these engineers in solving problems related to each of their individual subsystems and ensure that they interface together to achieve the goals of the overall system that they compose. Studying mathematics has greatly developed my ability to understand, and tackle, high level conceptual problems which is an essential skill for my success in this role.