A coffee with… Christine Bellamy, director of GOV.UK

Christine Bellamy joined GOV.UK after a decade working as head of product at the BBC. She didn’t have quite the induction at the UK public sector information website she was expecting (her first two months included the passing of a monarch and two prime ministerial changes). However, leadership in the face of adversity and keeping pace with technological trends stood Bellamy in good stead.

It wasn’t the first big challenge she had faced — she was tasked leading the BBC team that helped children continue their studies during the Covid-19 pandemic — and in a world constantly hit by unprecedented challenges, it is unlikely to be the last.

TI sits down with Bellamy to discuss the role of women in tech, and how their perspectives and experiences will help build better digital products and allow organisations to be nimble in the face of technological change.

How did you navigate a challenging first few months at GOV.UK, and what were some of the key learnings from those experiences?

When I arrived I was in a situation where I was getting to grips with the organisation, and then the Queen died.

I went from quietly learning how the tech works, how to be a civil servant, to all of a sudden being in action mode and attending quite high level calls. In retrospect, it was a great way to learn about how important GOV.UK is as a product because it meant there were those real life cases showing its impact on citizens across the UK and further afield.

It was a very interesting first few months. Friends were ringing me up asking, “did you think you were going be doing this?” I didn’t. I thought I would be building a long term strategy over time. But in that moment we had to think about how we use technology to make sure that everybody in the UK knew what was happening.

It was a baptism of fire, but one that meant I got to know the tech, my teams and how to work with government.

Have you faced any obstacles in your career due to your gender? What are they? Is this on-going?

I haven’t had a moment where I’ve left the office that day and thought, someone’s treated me different, because I’m a woman, but I’ve had moments in my career where I’ve changed the way I am and hid my true self.

Especially early on in my career, I would take on more male qualities to be less feminine, less authentic than I should have been or that I am. But as you get older, you get a bit more confident.

All I’ve done is stopped wearing suits and softened my edges. That was a weird sort of moment of realising that when you meet lots of leaders in life you don’t have to emulate others. Now I sit in many rooms, especially in tech rooms, where there’s much more of a collective, cohesive voice. I make a real point of making sure that those voices are heard.

What insights and guidance can you offer for young women embarking on careers in the technology industry?

Say yes to opportunities, don’t talk yourself out of the risk. The more times you say yes, they’re more moments you can add to your CV, and they’ll make you feel more confident.

The ability to deal with ambiguity is really helpful. If you can learn that in those formative years it sets you up going forward. If you see something that you think is exciting, be involved in it if you get the opportunity, even if it’s a stretch, don’t just wait to be asked.

Tell us about the significance of diversity in technology product development — how it will lead to the creation of better products?

This is critical. Before I entered government I worked for BBC Sport for a number of years on their digital products. I remember being in many rooms where everybody was male. The typical football fan was male, so you could argue that they were the right people to build the product.

But the change in a couple of years where we managed to make that much more of an even split, on diversity and lots of grounds, but definitely on gender. The products were more inclusive, more reflective of the users in the UK, and we were able to be one of the pioneers for women’s football. The product got enhanced because of the diversity of the team.

What are your goals and strategies for achieving greater gender diversity in the tech field?

In technical organisations we don’t recruit in a way that’s representative of the people we want joining us. And we need to

At GDS [Government Digital Service] we talk directly to individuals in university and college to let them know we exist. We’ve changed the way we run our ad campaigns to be more reflective of who we want joining us. We also do lots of in-house sessions where we spend time with schools — we’re constantly thinking about the future talent coming through.

But the big one is actually what we do in the organisation itself. I’m a big believer in people being able to change career often. In the civil service, for example, there’s a massive opportunity where you’ve got incredibly committed and talented people who are interested in tech, but don’t think it’s necessarily for them.

I run a group that looks at social mobility. And what we’re trying to do is think about people changing roles and being trained to be able to do the roles of the future. And I think that’d be a differentiator, not just for gender, but for class, diversity, because the chances are your job is going to change, so it’s important that you’re getting ahead of that. And the types of way we do that is with the training we provide, the mentoring we provide, and also placements — putting people into roles where they can spend time in the environment so they can then apply for a job because they know more about it. It’s been very successful.

Outreach is important, but also making sure that the people working already have the opportunity to move into technical roles — they already have the context, then train them on the bits they don’t know about.

What advice can you give to business leaders to close the gap on diversity and gender inequality?

You have to put in time and effort into making it happen. It won’t just happen by default. Look at your workforce plan and think about what the skillsets in the future are going to be, then look at your own teams and decide how you’re going to train them so they fit that profile.

What are you most proud of in your career journey so far?

Before Covid, I worked on a BBC product called Bitesize — at that point it was a very broken proposition. We needed to change it and make it work for students. We had to do a big pitch for investment, which we’re able to do, and we built a good product with an app. That was a year before Covid, so when it came to lockdown that product was ready. It became a real building block of how people were taught.

A television programme was then launched detailing that people would do learning from home, and Bitesize was used in that programme — that happened because of what we’d done a year earlier.

Do you have any tech predictions for 2024? What would you like to see businesses doing?

GenAI is going to make the complex, less complex. The big change will be the ability for an individual to have their questions answered in a way that feels conversational. For us, at GOV.UK, that could be transformational because it could make it so easy for citizens to get what they need from the site.

Being the director of such an influential website, how do you retain that work/life balance?

Every other weekend I go to the Lake District, put my boots on and walk up mountains. In the summer I go into the lakes and pretend I can stand on a board — I’m not very good at it! Then in the evenings I go to the pub with a beer and the dog.

It’s a real great turn off. When I’m walking into Manchester, or walking into London, I absolutely love it, but I wouldn’t be able to do it without that stop. I need to make myself turn up, put some scruffy clothes on and get some boots on.

How do you take your coffee?

I don’t drink coffee. Since I was a kid I’d love to be sophisticated and drink coffee, but I don’t like it. I’ve realised you can go and get a chai latte — it looks healthy, so that’s me. But I love tea! I couldn’t survive without tea! That’s is my Achilles heel.

What’s the latest piece of tech you bought for personal use?

I’ve replaced my Fitbit, probably for the third time because my watch always breaks — my dog usually stands on it!

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