My Route into Historic England’s Marine Data Exchange Heritage Accelerator Team

My Path into Historic England

My journey to this role has involved several placements across the organisation, each giving me insight into a different part of Historic England’s work. 

I first joined through the Emerging Talent Programme, which is an 8-week internship that looks at providing an entry into the Heritage field for under-represented communities. I worked within the Policy & Evidence team, specifically considering how the planning process could be better utilised by and for people of specific communities.  

This placement introduced me to how national policy, research and strategic evidence shape the way Historic England advises, influences and supports heritage protection. It also familiarised me with the organisation’s approach to evidence-led decision-making, which became a major point of interest for me. 

After this, I took on my first Step Up placement in the Regions Team, where I gained experience on the local-authority and place-based side of Historic England’s work. Step Up placements are short-term roles 6 months long that are designed to give early-career staff hands-on experience, exposure to different teams, and the chance to contribute meaningfully while developing new skills. Working in Regions allowed me to see how national priorities filter into local contexts, especially in planning, conservation and stakeholder engagement. 

Both placements gave me a broad understanding of Historic England’s operations, from national strategy to regional delivery, and helped me appreciate how different parts of the organisation interconnect. 

This wider experience naturally led me toward my second Step Up placement, now within the MDEHA team. It felt like the right opportunity to deepen my skills while continuing to work with evidence, but in a completely new environment: the marine sector. 

Why marine heritage caught my interest 

My educational background is in architecture, and I’ve always been interested in how people, history and place overlap. Over time, that interest expanded from the built environment into a curiosity about landscapes as layered systems, both on land and at sea. 

While working on earlier guidance and policy tasks at Historic England, I became more aware of the marine evidence programme. What stood out was how challenging and unique underwater heritage is: it’s remote, fragile, often poorly recorded, and heavily dependent on good data. The idea of helping to organise and clarify that information felt practical, meaningful, and aligned with my strengths. 

The marine environment also brings its own pressures, from offshore wind expansion to climate impacts, which makes reliable evidence increasingly important. 

What I have worked on so far

Since joining MDEHA as a Marine Data Assistant, I’ve supported a range of tasks focused on improving clarity, structure and accessibility within marine heritage data. 

My work to date includes: 

• Creating a structured spreadsheet of marine publications (excluding reports): this gives the team a clearer overview of existing material and helps identify where updates or additional work might be needed. 
• Writing publicly accessible content: including the article Mobilising Heritage Data to Support Offshore Wind Expansion, which explains how heritage evidence contributes to the delivery of clean-energy infrastructure. 
• Supporting day-to-day data tasks: checking dataset entries, collating information for internal work, and assisting with smaller activities that help keep the team’s evidence base accurate and organised. 

These tasks have allowed me to strengthen my understanding of marine datasets and the practical realities of working with heritage evidence at scale. 

What draws me to this work

Even though I come from a design background, I’ve always valued structure, clarity and well-organised information. Marine data brings those interests into a new context. I enjoy helping make complex material easier to navigate and supporting a team whose work depends on reliable evidence. 

I’m also interested in how data underpins planning and policy, and how it can be improved so different users such as internal colleagues, researchers and developers can understand the marine historic environment more easily. 

Looking ahead

I’m still exploring where I see myself long-term within Historic England and the wider heritage and environmental sectors. For now, I’m focused on building a stronger understanding of marine datasets, developing my technical skills, and gaining more experience across the team’s work. 

What I do know is that this placement gives me an important opportunity: to learn from specialists, contribute meaningfully, and understand how evidence supports sustainable change offshore and along England’s coasts. I plan to keep developing in that direction and see where it leads.