International Day of Women and Girls in Science - Meet Alice Lowe

We can all be guilty of thinking of STEM and picturing chemists in lab coats, engineers with complicated measuring tools, and programmers deep in code, but there are so many roles in STEM you sometimes never even learn about until you start working in the field.

At 16 I was pretty sure I wanted to be a developer. I liked computers, I had a head for logic, and my maths was… good enough. But before I even began I had pushback, my head of year tried to talk me out of a Computing A-Level saying it would “lead to a dead-end job”. But I persevered, got my A-levels, and went to the University of Liverpool to study Computing and Psychology Joint Honours.

After university I was lucky enough to get onto the Atos graduate scheme, where I was placed in Worldline as a developer! Just as I had dreamed of at 16! And I did not like it. But thankfully, the graduate scheme was flexible and I started looking around my colleagues to see who’s job looked more my style. I met Peter Lake, who introduced me to Business Analysis; the bridge between client and developer and the perfect role for my background in computing and psychology! I changed career and now I spend my days speaking to stakeholders, writing requirements, drawing diagrams, and even writing the odd piece of pseudocode where necessary!

When starting my journey into STEM I hadn’t even heard of the job I’d end up doing. I think one of its greatest strengths is the variety of roles and people in it!

Alice Lowe - Business Analyst