Luke Taylor

PhD, Creative Computing

Creative Computing Institute, University of the Arts London

Funded by a UAL Research Project Studentship, Reactivating Archives and Increasing Accessibility.

MRes, Geospatial Data Science

Nottingham Geospatial Institute, University of Nottingham

Thesis: Initial steps towards an open cadastre in the UK: a case study. Supervisor: Professor Doreen Boyd.

Software Engineering Bootcamp

Makers Academy

Service Design (short course)

University of the Arts London

Graduate Diploma in Law

Nottingham Law School

Postgraduate Certificate in Education, with Qualified Teacher Status

UCL Institute of Education

MA, Urban Planning and International Development (RTPI accredited)

University of Sheffield

BA (Hons), Urban Studies and Planning

University of Sheffield, including a study abroad year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2007 to 2008)

Government Digital Service: Recognition Award, for helping introduce AI coding tools into engineering work.

UAL Research Project Studentship, Reactivating Archives and Increasing Accessibility. University of the Arts London.

Travel award to attend FIG Working Week 2023 (International Federation of Surveyors), Orlando, Florida. EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Geospatial Systems.

Study Grant for the PhD course Python for Geospatial Analysis, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE).

MRes funding, EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Geospatial Systems (Newcastle University and University of Nottingham).

Travel Grant, 17th Annual World Bank Land and Poverty Conference, Washington DC. Regional Studies Association.

Santander International Mobility Award, for Justice Through a Lens, a photography project in Brazil that linked the places I visited to areas of law (lukeojtaylor.wordpress.com). Santander Partnership.

John Richings James Scholarship, University of Sheffield, for research in Jamaica on “captured land” (informal settlements), The Complexities of Upgrading a Home: whether residents invest in their homes, and what influences those decisions.

Postgraduate Planning Bursary, for the MA in Urban Planning and International Development. Department for Communities and Local Government (now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government).

Platform and Site Reliability Engineer

Government Digital Service

• Worked on the platform behind GOV.UK One Login, supporting engineering teams across development, staging and production.
• Maintained the five-stage deployment pipeline, and helped build canary deployments that roll back automatically when an alarm fires.
• Wrote infrastructure as code with Terraform and CloudFormation across several AWS accounts.
• Worked on security compliance (GovAssure and the Cyber Assessment Framework).
• Built a Python workflow that used AI to sort platform support tickets, to help the team improve the service.

Security Analyst

Deloitte Digital, on assignment at the Government Digital Service

• Built an isolated sandbox to investigate a malicious app impersonating GOV.UK.
• Wrote Sigma detection rules and converted them into Splunk queries that alert the Technical Service Desk.
• Investigated AWS CloudTrail events and built targeted Splunk queries.

Programme Manager, Strategy and Operations

Department for Transport

• Managed important policy work to tight deadlines, working with teams across the department.
• Prepared briefings for senior leaders and kept them updated on progress.
• Analysed property data to inform the national plan for selling surplus government land.

Urban Planning Policy Adviser

Southwark Council

• Planned the infrastructure needed for the Old Kent Road regeneration, forecasting demand from 20,000 more people, and drafted policies on community needs.
• Supported negotiations with developers and council teams, so that new developments also delivered the public services people need.

Policy Adviser, EU Law and Infractions

UK Civil Service

• Worked through uncertainty during the Brexit negotiations to help set UK environmental targets, and modelled how new rules would affect the economy.
• Led coordination across Whitehall departments to protect the UK's position on regulation.

Policy Adviser (Intern), Major Infrastructure

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

• Worked with legal and technical experts on making new planning regulations, to help the planning system work better.

Teach First Teacher

Schools in Hackney and Islington

• Taught primary school pupils, with responsibility for their learning and pastoral care.
• Delivered the National Curriculum using a range of pedagogical approaches to engage and motivate all learners.
• Set clear learning objectives, planned lessons and assessed progress to adapt my teaching.
• Completed a PGCE with Qualified Teacher Status (UCL Institute of Education), developing my pedagogy through reflective practice and classroom observation.

Programme Management Intern, Global Land Tools Network

UN-Habitat, Nairobi

Mentor, Albert Kennedy Trust.

Co-founder, Nairobi Interns United.

Community Planner, Planning Aid, Royal Town Planning Institute.