Ed.D, MA
Career History
Laura Lane is an Associate Director at Kada Research. She has 19 years of experience in learning and skills, social mobility, strategy, and leadership roles across private, public and academic settings.
Before joining Kada Research, Laura worked for the Department of Education, where she led on national post-16, and professional and technical education policy developments. She has a decade of higher education (HE) experience with a Doctorate of Education in social mobility and access to HE.
She has a Master’s in Human Geography from the University of Durham, during which she focused on national and international development issues.
Strengths
Laura has delivered across a wide range of national policy agendas, programmes and projects, including post-16 qualifications (UK, European and international), professional and technical education, access to higher education (HE), inclusion and diversity, regeneration and skills, and strategic school improvement.
Her strengths include qualitative research, skills and pathways data analysis, strategy development, evaluation and project & programme management.
Experience
Following Laura’s completion of her Master’s, she worked in regeneration in the private and public sectors specialising in learning and skills. In 2008 she joined the University of Sheffield’s Admissions service where she was responsible for establishing institutional policy and practice in response to national reforms affecting entry qualifications and curricula. She went on to undertake leadership roles within the University.
Laura has undeniable experience in the education sector, where she has worked on national skills and technical education policy developments within the Department of Education.
Project work undertaken since joining Kada includes a Skills, Training and Business Support plan for an Innovation District; developing a Digital Skills Framework; reviewing FE college alignment with local skills priorities; and research into Higher and Degree Apprenticeship expansion.
Skills
Laura completed a bachelor’s degree from the University of Sheffield in French and Business Studies before undertaking a Master’s in Environment, Culture and Development from the University of Durham. Both courses are complemented by a Doctorate of Education focussing on HE policy.
She has specialist skills in strategy development, qualitative research, evaluation, learning and skills analysis and policy analysis.
Outside of Work
Laura’s passion is being outdoors – she enjoys walking, cycling and swimming. She is also committed to raising awareness about endometriosis, a condition affecting at least 1.5 million people in the UK.
Interesting Fact
After completing a month-long conservation project in rural Australia (many years ago), Laura did a sky dive over the Whitsunday Islands.
