Released On 25 August 2025
Barbara's blog: Reframing The Rulebook
A few weeks ago, I was interviewed for a podcast. It was one of a series, authored by the Design History Society, which explored the career paths of students that had taken their master’s degree in History of Design at the Royal College of Art. But rather than spotlight those that had followed a traditional route into the arts sector or academia, the Society sought people that had used their postgrad to take a more unconventional journey. Like working in regulation. As in yours truly.
Son and Daughter were fascinated by their mother’s step into potential stardom and listened to the podcast. Brutal feedback aside (“You sound like you are reading from a script”, “The bit in the middle was a bit repetitive”), the experience helped them to understand, maybe for the first time, what their mother does for a living.
Daughter: “Why did you quit design?”
Me: “I needed a stable job that was more local, to raise a family”
Son: “Did you get bored of the local job then? You started working in London again when we were still little, leaving us with the au pair”
Me (urgh, no guilt trip there!): “Um, sort of. I wanted a role that had purpose, where I could see I was making a difference.”
Son: “And working in the public sector gives you that? The government is constantly in the news being criticised about one thing or the other”.
Me: “…”
Daughter and Son: “…”
The podcast, and this conversation, encouraged me to reflect on the reasons why I made the choices I did. Although I have always thought my decisions were circumstantial, driven by the motivation to mitigate an issue (like working locally to be home for the kids’ breakfast and bedtime), on hindsight I took substantial risks and was able to capitalise on the opportunities that I came across. But… at what point did working in the public sector become an attractive career option? When did I stop thinking that a regulator, and government in general, was a stuffy, bureaucratic and unappealing organisation to work for?
The answer is that, at some point, and maybe with the maturity (and I use that word lightly!) that comes from hitting your thirties, my priorities changed: I started to seek purpose, intellectual stimulation, and the ability to effect change in visible and tangible ways. The regulator gave me all that and more, including opportunities to apply the same sort of creative, multi-disciplinary and rigorous approach to problem solving that I had when working in design.
Making regulation an attractive career choice has become a bit of a mission. A lot of the conversations I have with interns and graduate scheme participants focus on raising awareness that, first, you don’t need to have studied law, economics or PPE to work in the public sector, as it grapples with the sort of problems that need diverse, creative and unconventional thinkers. And second, working in government or regulation offers roles that can be rewarding, challenging and encourage professional development, as well as providing the purpose that comes from dealing with issues of national strategic importance. Far from dull.
So if you are considering a career in the public sector, whether you are a student or a seasoned professional looking to pivot, here are some tips:
- Be specific: the public sector covers a huge range of topics. Focus on what fires your passion and build your knowledge around that, within a more generalist awareness of the wider landscape.
- Work out how to articulate the relevance of your skill set to the public sector. You might be surprised how much you have to offer. For example, in regulation, you have to deftly bridge the gap between organisational boundaries by bringing together the views of technical groups of colleagues – economists, lawyers, engineers, safety advisors –, reconcile those views with external theories and research, and synthetise everything into concise and easily understood bullet points, often for ministerial consumption. This intellectual agility is the gold standard in the public sector and probably one of the most important skills to support policy-making.
- But most of all, be self-reflective and get to know yourself, including your weaknesses, strengths, ambition, desires and vision of where you want to be. And then be yourself despite knowing yourself. This is the best shortcut to being content in your work because you are authentically you. It has served me well in my career and still does to this day.
Barbara works as an environmental strategist for the aviation regulator and lives a stone’s throw from the South Downs, with her 19-year-old creative daughter, 18-year-old ingenious son and supportive husband.
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