A driven data scientist swapped performance management for electricity networks after her interest in data sparked a career change.
Grace Akede is a Data Scientist working with the System Forecasting department at Northern Powergrid and has been for almost a year.
She used to be a chemical engineer back in Nigeria but around five years ago, she found herself presented with more data than ever before and wanted to learn and understand how to use it to better her work.
She found she was enjoying the problem solving that comes with data analysis and looking the data with different eyes meant she could see things many couldn’t.
From there she took some online courses, the more she learnt about how data can be utilised in different ways to improve efficiency in business, the more she loved it.
She enrolled in and completed a master’s degree in applied data science at Teesside University in Middlesbrough where she now lives.
She started a two-year master’s degree programme with a placement option so that she could put the theoretical knowledge gained from the programme into practice.
She gained real world experience working with companies such as Schroders and National Grid and once her degree was finished, Grace was looking for a full-time role in the region.
That’s when she saw the Data Scientist role advertised for Northern Powergrid, she completed her application that night and got the job.
Grace’s role focuses on cleansing, extracting, analysing and reporting different types of data and making sure it is high quality so it can be used to develop our electricity network.
She’s currently working on a project that sees more monitoring software introduced into the Low Voltage network, the network that looks after 3.9 million homes in the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire.
She is looking for patterns and how to solve problems by providing data that help companies make smarter and greener business choices when it comes to their connections via Northern Powergrid’s Open Data Portal.
Northern Powergrid’s Open Data Portal provides a wealth of additional datasets and intelligence on their distribution networks and should be the first port of call for anyone looking to explore the data they make available and how to access it.
Grace said “I decided to switch careers because I wanted more career flexibility and enjoy working with data.
“While working with data in my role as an Improvement and Performance Manager, I found myself diving deep into the data, inspecting and analysing data needed to optimise production and reduce costs.
“I love the fact this role gives me opportunity to always keep learning, I’m surrounded by such intelligent people who are really experts in their fields so when I’m not learning from courses or books, I’m learning from them.
“You’ve got to make sure your data and insights are clear and understandable to your stakeholders, not everyone has a technical understanding, so communication is key in a role like this.”
Gill Williamson, Head of System Forecasting for Northern Powergrid, said “Grace’s passion for her role is infectious, she is always looking for a new way to do things or improve herself.
“Having her on the team has brought a wealth of experience not just in her field of data analytics but her background in chemical engineering means she comes at problems from a different angle.
“Grace’s work means we can look at other options in our work to achieve net zero – we aren’t always needing to build something new.
“We can use our network in a more flexible and smart way to be able to maximise the use of our existing network capacity, and that comes from looking at data.”
Find out more about the roles and responsibilities of Northern Powergrid, visit their website.
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