I was pleased to have a talk accepted at the annual UCISA Women in Tech (WiT) conference. I went to Newcastle for a day of talks, workshops and networking. I left with a better understanding of the WiT community , and a reinforced appreciation of the need for inclusivity in Higher Education.    

UCISA is an industry body supporting digital professionals working in the education sector. I have been actively involved in UCISA since 2022 when I helped set up the UCISA UX Group and became co-chair of this UK-wide community of practice. I’ve organised many UCISA UX events but had not attended one of UCISA’s flagship annual conferences, the Women in Tech event, until this year. My presentation about our project on staff profiles resonated with attendees, I learned a lot about diversity and representation in the sector from attending the other talks and I enjoyed connecting with other Higher Education professionals over shared inclusivity challenges. Here, I reflect on my highlights from an interesting day.

Sharing our staff profiles work piqued interest from other universities

As well as the clear focus on inclusivity, one of the themes of this year’s WiT was real-world applications and problem-solving. I felt our staff profiles project spoke to this theme, so I submitted a talk to share what we learned from research and the steps we have taken towards finding a new profiles solution.

My session was well received – perhaps unsurprisingly, colleagues from other institutions shared the same concerns and challenges in designing a profile solution that showcases staff in the best light, keeps them findable in searches, and yet remains easy for staff to update. I valued the chance to make new contacts, exchange ideas, and learn about other institutions’ diverse approaches to the ‘profiles problem’. I resolved to stay in touch as we take steps towards implementing a profiles solution at the University, recognising just how universal this need is across the Higher Education sector, and seeing an opportunity for meaningful collaboration.

Read more about the staff profiles project in the blog post series:

Collected blog posts about staff profiles project

Results of a 2025 WiT survey revealed risks and opportunities

One of the core activities of the UCISA WiT committee is to regularly collect data to understand diversity within IT departments across the FE/HE sector. At the conference, WiT committee co-chairs Christi Hopkinson and Katie Wilde shared a preview of the results of the 2025 survey, completed by more than 200 respondents from 66 institutions, with 74.5% of the respondents identifying as female. Several findings stood out from the preliminary report in terms of risks and opportunities.

There’s a risk of retention due to barriers to progression

Responses to a question about progression routes revealed significant proportions of respondents had started in IT in the following areas:

• First/Second Line Support
• Application Support
• Business Analysis
• Project Management
• Web Development

Responses to a follow-up question about the roles respondents were currently working in showed continued representation in these areas, which indicated a degree of stasis when it came to progression in the sector. Areas where women were underrepresented included:

• Infrastructure
• Security
• Enterprise Architecture
• Senior Management.

The survey results showed a third of respondents had considered leaving their institutions or the sector, citing pay, workload and progression as popular reasons motivating them to think about moving on. Common blockers to progression included:

• Lack of available higher-grade roles
• Promotion structures tied only to management, not technical excellence
• Career pathways not transparent
• Women having to ‘prove more’ to progress

There’s potential to be gained by investing in non-technical skills

Most respondents cited the following skills as important for the roles they were currently in as well as for progression:

• Problem solving
• Communication
• Analytical skills
• Customer service
• Business analysis
• Strategic thinking

This spread of skills reinforced the value of focusing training and development on non-technical abilities to complement technical skills, and to ensure expertise was appropriately directed to deliver on broader institutional goals.

There’s room to improve on diversity, inclusion and discrimination

Responses to questions about inclusion and belonging revealed positives and negatives about the workplace respondents were part of.

On the positive side:

• 79% felt valued as part of a team
• 67% felt they were treated fairly and equitably

On the less-positive side:

• Only 34% felt the leadership reflected diversity in the workforce
• 41% felt there were opportunities for careers advancement
• 46% felt their organisation supported under-represented groups
• 47% were satisfied with their organisation’s diversity initiatives

The spread of these numbers provided a clear steer of areas to focus on to achieve less exclusive, and better-balanced IT workplace.

Achieving inclusivity starts with individuals and requires thinking beyond statistics

The survey data gave a snapshot of the current state of inclusivity in the sector, however, anecdotes from individual presenters painted a more vivid picture of what inclusivity could look like. The WiT programme included several women sharing stories of their induction into tech and reflecting on their individual progression routes. It was refreshing to see the diversity of pathways they had taken and interesting to hear about what they had learned along the way, and their tips for success.

Monica Jones, Chief Data Officer at the University of Leeds acknowledged that career progression paths rarely run smoothly, and advised setting personal goals and milestones to work towards, to be best-prepared for promotion opportunities when these came up. Julia Lloyd, College Manager – Business and Law, at the University of the West of England, emphasised the benefits of ‘quiet leadership’ and shared tips to create space for different voices – such as thoughtful structuring of meetings, design of communication channels and rewarding contributions over confidence. A joint talk ‘The Not-So IT Crowd’ from Catriona Blair, Joanna Addison and Sasha Titus from the University of Kent, and a session by Amber Mothersille from the University of Northampton emphasised the value of non-technical skills in technical roles – recognising the need for empathy, trust-building and adaptability to strengthen teams and build excellent digital services.

Breaking barriers requires breaking old biases and habits

A final takeaway from attending the WiT event was a call-to-action to question the way we work – specifically to foster inclusivity by making room for new ways of thinking and for fresh perspectives.

In an interactive exercise led by Katie Wilde, we considered five roles necessary for the operation of successful teams (the Navigator, the Connector, the Builder, the Challenger). In a period of honest reflection, we shared the roles we naturally adopted in team settings, and the roles we tended to overlook or disregard. Going through this exercise was a good leveller as well as a reminder to make room for diversity in everyday team settings instead of relying on familiarity.

The day closed with a thought-provoking talk on male fragility, delivered by Jake Dovey, a UCISA mentor. Drawing on personal anecdotes experienced through his involvement with UCISA, Jake’s talk described instances where men had overreacted defensively to being challenged and where women had inadvertently softened situations to avoid potential conflict and ‘keep the peace’. Jake challenged the women in the room to recognise these instances going forward, and prompted a call-to-action for all to recognise these harmful patterns and call them out to collectively help break the disruptive cycle.

Final thoughts – WiT26 was less about women and more about inclusivity

WiT26 delivered a packed programme which encouraged me to think outside my work in UX and more broadly about the joint responsibilities we all have in creating and fostering an inclusive work environment. I came away with recommendations of books to read and concepts to learn more about, and a heightened awareness of embedding inclusive practices in my day-to-day work and activities. I am keen to see the full results of the WiT 2025 survey and to remain part of the WiT community going forward.

Last month I was honoured to receive a national award for Outstanding Leadership from industry body UCISA, recognising my work driving positive change through UX. This achievement prompted me to reflect on my experiences leading UX in different realms over the past few years, and to think about what UX leadership means to me.

At the start of 2025 I was asked to step up to a senior leadership position within the global open-source Drupal community. Drupal, the primary content management system used by the University, has a long-standing reputation for being developer-centric and, coinciding with the launch of a new low-code site-building product, they needed help to steer it towards non-technical audiences.

Without thinking too hard, I jumped at the opportunity. I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I was motivated by the chance to use UX as a force for positive change. I didn’t really have much of a plan, but I was confident I could draw on the UX knowledge and experience I had and figure out ways to make things better. Looking back, this represented a milestone in my UX leadership journey and my broader approach to leadership.

I took over running the University UX Service in October 2022. At the start of 2023, I was a UX team of one and I needed to recruit some team members to rebuild and re-establish the service. I was fortunate to be able to bring in some amazingly talented people to work in my team and with their help, and with some successes, failures and near-misses along the way, was able to transform the UX Service into what it is now – a thriving unit delivering sustained value for the University, one improved digital experience at a time. With that behind me, at the start of 2025, I was open to new opportunities to stretch my leadership capabilities. I had accepted that I would get things wrong before I got them right, but I was drawn for the associated learning, which I recognised would help make me become a better all-round leader.

As it turns out, 2025 became quite the year. I won the Women in Drupal Define Award (in October 2025), and the inaugural UCISA Outstanding Leadership award (in March 2026). Taking on the challenge of leading UX in Drupal paid off in more ways than I could have anticipated. Seeing my work bring about positive UX change in Drupal provided me with a renewed sense of purpose in my job leading the University UX Service, as well as in my roles running the UCISA UX Group and contributing to W3C. I’ve boiled down my thoughts on what successful UX leadership looks like for me into three reflections which I’ve turned into action points to take forward as I progress in UX leadership.

UX needs an adaptive leadership approach, and you always need to promote UX value

When I run brainstorms for UX events with the UCISA UX Group committee, ‘Getting buy-in for UX’ is a topic that regularly comes up. How do we get senior decision-makers to invest in UX? Surely making digital services, products and systems more user-centred is something everyone wants?

Well, yes, but it’s complicated. UX can be disruptive. UX research reveals problems, and once problems are unearthed, there’s an obligation to address them, and that requires time, resource and effort which may not be readily available.

Keeping this in mind helps me shape my UX leadership approach. When I’m contributing to Drupal, I take into account that Drupal is a volatile, fast-moving, open-source community, where new ways of thinking and novel ideas are the norm. There is room for UX amongst the many other forces driving change. The Drupal community has autonomy to make changes and is a solutions-powerhouse, ready to react and respond to the needs and demands arising from UX research. Taken together, this mean I can effectively lead UX in Drupal by presenting and talking about UX on a conceptual level, conducting UX research and openly sharing the findings to prompt and rally the community around making user-centred changes.

Leading UX in the public-sector context of the University context needs to be handled differently. Before initiating any UX research activity, I take time to understand the nuances of a situation, to anticipate the context-specific value UX may bring, and honestly assess the resource and commitment required to achieve that value.

The UX Service receives many requests for UX help, but a fraction of the requests we receive are not progressed, meaning digital experiences that could be improved are left unchanged. I recently led a retrospective with my UX team to understand reasons why, and to look for patterns. We concluded that in a number of cases, there is a gulf between people’s expectations of what UX improvement involves and the reality of making improvements happen. This gap is often what causes teams to abandon their UX plans.

This insight shapes how I lead UX at the University. Rather than describing it in purely conceptual terms, I make a point of bringing teams into the practical reality – the sometimes messy, non-linear steps required to achieve improved UX. Leaning on  the persuasive power of word-of-mouth, myself and my UX team take every opportunity to cite and promote successful case studies and testimonials from teams we’ve worked with, demonstrating the real-world value UX brings, and praising teams that choose to apply agency and sustained will to make things better, acting on what they’ve learned from user research.

If you’re going to be a good UX leader, you need to be worth following

As part of her talk at the UCISA Leadership Conference in March 2024, the inspirational rugby player Maggie Alphonsi shared a short video of a person dancing alone at an outdoor event to make a point about leaders and followers. As the seconds ticked by, another person joined the first dancer, and then another and another until a crowd formed. I reflected that being a leader (akin to being the first dancer) is a lonely existence unless people follow you, and that doesn’t come as a given, it all depends on your actions and the impression people have of you, and whether they can meaningfully relate to you.

Since UX is universally applicable, leading it effectively requires more than UX expertise alone. In the service dominant logic model, value only emerges when operant skills (in this case, UX skills and techniques) are applied to operand resources (digital experiences to be improved) through genuine partnerships. Successful partnerships depend on trust and shared understanding, which in turn rest on contextual knowledge and empathy. To lead meaningful UX improvements, I need to retain a constant understanding of what good digital experiences look like, and that means stepping out of the UX bubble to engage with emergent technologies, developing standards, market forces and digital trends.

Distilling down the focus of UX down to ‘making digital experiences better’ leading UX carries a perpetual invitation to innovate, and to seek creative ways of addressing problems. I approach this with a magpie’s mentality – actively scanning to learn about anything that might help me do my job better, whether that’s a change framework, a data modelling tool, an assessment approach. My radar is deliberately wide and I opt not to stay in my lane, always aspiring to grow my sphere of knowledge, influence and connections, motivated by the learning rewards and staying true to the mantra: ‘to get different results, do things differently’.

The breadth of that knowledge pays dividends. As a UX leader, stepping outside familiar territory and taking a genuine interest in different fields puts me in a stronger position to build partnerships across a wide range of spheres — and to respond intelligently to the UX challenges that arise within them. Technology is constantly evolving, as are human needs from it. So I never turn down an opportunity to learn. Furthermore, adopting a humble position of learner means I can absorb knowledge freely, without the constraints of defending expertise I’ve already declared.

Managing and growing partnerships, is of course, just one dimension of UX leadership. In his Driesnote recorded at DrupalCon Chicago 2026, highly-respected Drupal leader (and all-round duderocker and legend) Dries Buytaert reflected on his own leadership journey, describing how his drive and ambition for building and growing open-source Drupal led to him becoming an ‘accidental leader’.  I reasoned that, being an effective leader needs an inherent passion, goal and inner sense of worth, which emulates to others like the energy from the lone dancer, drawing them to follow.

As a UX leader, you’re responsible for shaping future UX leaders

I take my leadership roles very seriously, and I am committed to using my position as a platform to support and encourage widespread adoption of UX approaches and practices. My goal as a UX leader is not just to convince people of UX’s value, but to inspire them to practise it and learn for themselves.

When I was invited as a guest lecturer to speak about running the University’s UX Service to students from the University of Edinburgh Business School, I emphasised the time and effort I devote to building operational capability – in other words, thinking bout the future, and pre-empting needs and demand for improved digital services and developing a strategy to address these in a sustainable way.

A core part of my UX Service strategy is a UX coaching model, built in response to a clear reality – there will always be more user experiences to improve than there are UX professionals to improve them. Coaching others in UX techniques and approaches is an effective way to address the imbalance. When colleagues have the ability to carry out UX research to diagnose UX problems themselves and then apply UX techniques to address them, it’s a win-win. Not only are more  digital experiences improved, problems are caught earlier and UX becomes firmly on the radar.  Democratising UX skills through coaching embeds UX capability, driving a future-state mindset where UX is part of normal software and digital management processes and procedures across the institution.

As well as converting colleagues to the UX cause, there’s the next generations of UX leaders to consider. In summer 2026, the UX Service will continue working with interns and we will grow the number of student workers in our team from three to four. As in previous years, I am excited for the opportunity to support and learn from these emerging UX leaders, to encourage them to bring  their new ideas, provocations and thoughts on how we can do better. Because when it comes to UX leadership, there are always ways to do things better and therefore continual opportunity for motivation and drive.

Here are some photos of my UCISA award and me

I was unable to attend the UCISA Leadership Summit when my award was presented, but it was transported back to me to enjoy and celebrate after the event.

Photo on the left shows the UCISA leadership team and judges with my award for Outstanding Leadership being presented at the Leadership Summit in Liverpool. Photo on the right shows me with my award back home in Scotland.