Professional Case Studies
The projects below are drawn from my time as a Data Analyst at Mime, where I worked with schools, local authorities, and third-sector organisations across the UK. Each one was delivered to a real client, with real constraints, and built to be maintained independently after handover.
Governance Action Tracker - Automated Survey Workflow & Analysis
Client: Education sector client (via Mime)
The problem: Governance reporting was a manual, time-intensive process. Every time a new survey was needed, responses had to be collected, aggregated, and processed by hand, and any updates to the governance framework meant starting over. It worked, but it was slow and fragile.
What I did: I completely redesigned and automated the backend workflow from scratch. The new system handles survey creation, response aggregation, data processing, and framework updates end-to-end, with automated analysis feeding directly into a custom dashboard with click-through detail views. Everything is documented so it can be run and maintained independently.
The result: A task that previously consumed significant analyst time now takes under 30 minutes to complete, end-to-end. The client has a reliable, repeatable system that they own and can operate themselves.
Skills: Excel, VBA, workflow automation, dashboard design, automated analysis, technical documentation
Pan London SEND Commissioning Report
Client: London-area local authority (via Mime) Type: Analysis & Consultancy
The problem: A local authority needed a clearer picture of SEND provision across their area: where the gaps were, what was working, and what needed to change. The underlying data existed, but it was fragmented, and no one had yet drawn it together into a coherent analysis that could inform commissioning decisions.
What I did: I analysed survey responses and contextual data across the authority's area, identifying gaps in provision and developing concrete recommendations for improvement. One of those recommendations — an interactive mapping tool that would let commissioners visualise provision geographically and maintain it themselves going forward — was subsequently commissioned by the client for development. I then contributed directly to building it, integrating public datasets and writing detailed handover documentation so the tool could be updated independently without ongoing analyst support.
The result: The analysis didn't just answer the client's question, it created a new project. A recommendation in a report became a live, commissioned tool. That outcome reflects something I care about: delivering analysis that's specific and credible enough to drive real decisions, not just inform them.
Skills: Data analysis, stakeholder communication, public dataset integration, Python, interactive dashboard development, technical documentation
Survey Data Cleaning Toolkit
Client: Education sector clients (via Mime)
Type: Automation & Tooling
The problem: Survey data preparation was being done manually — a slow, error-prone process that created a bottleneck before any analysis could begin.
What I did: I designed and built a complete automated ETL and QA pipeline from scratch. This included Excel/VBA utilities for data cleaning, Web API integration to backfill missing data, and validation checks throughout. Crucially, I built it so that clients could run it themselves — with clear documentation and a user-friendly interface — rather than being dependent on me or my team for every update.
The result: A fully client-operable toolkit that eliminated manual data preparation, reduced errors, and freed up analyst time for actual analysis. Final outputs fed directly into a linked Tableau dashboard ready for handover.
Skills: Excel, VBA, Web APIs, ETL pipeline design, QA and validation, Tableau, technical documentation
Multi Academy Trust 'Inclusion Index'
Client: Multi-Academy Trust (via Mime)
Type: Analysis, Python, Data Product
The problem: A client wanted a way to measure inclusivity across schools and use that insight for marketing outreach — but no such metric existed.
What I did: I created an "Inclusion Index" by combining multiple public data sources into a
single composite metric, designed from scratch. I then used Python, web scraping, and APIs to compile contact details for approximately 300 educational leaders for marketing outreach, and built a free public-facing interactive dashboard to showcase the findings.
The result: A complete data product — from bespoke metric design through to a live public dashboard — that gave the client both a credible insight tool and a marketing asset.
Skills: Python, web scraping, APIs, composite metric design, Tableau/dashboard building, strategic thinking
Generative AI & Prompt Engineering Blog Series
A growing series on how to get the most out of modern LLMs — grounded in research and practical experience rather than hype.
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Forget "Think step by step" - Here's How to Actually Improve LLM Accuracy: an evidence-based look at why Chain-of-Thought prompting has become ineffective on modern models, and what actually works instead
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You're Using ChatGPT Wrong. Here's How to Prompt Like a Pro: advanced prompt engineering techniques including role-based prompting, task decomposition, ReAct, and few-shot prompting
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Still Copy-Pasting into ChatGPT? Here's How to Turn Your Ideas into AI-Powered Apps: a practical guide to accessing LLMs via API in Python to build automation tools and custom data pipelines
Algorithms, Mathematics & Data Science Articles
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Solving the Travelling Salesman Problem Using a Genetic Algorithm: algorithmic design, Python, visualisation
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Procedural Terrain Generation with Perlin Noise: mathematical algorithms, parameter exploration, 3D visualisation
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Data Visualisation Best Practices: pre-attentive attributes, Gestalt principles, applied to real charts
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Image Processing & Computer Vision: edge detection and K-means segmentation in Python
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Graph Theory & Mathematical Proofs: Bridges of Königsberg, The Stable Matching Problem, Tower of Hanoi