Andy Youell - UK Higher Education Data

Andy Youell has a 35 year career working in and with Higher Education data systems and governance, resulting in him being very much the go-to sector guru in the field. While data may appear to be about numbers and systems, Andy’s approach to getting things right in the sector is very much about people, culture, capability and confidence.

We discuss Andy’s career with sector bodies, his freelance consultancy, and a brief stint working within a university, as well as the advisory role he’s played on numerous occasions, including to Government Ministers. His extensive career also offers us a potted history of how the HE data landscape has evolved across the last three decades, and we talk about how institutions have responded to that and what needs to come next.  We also reflect upon some classic data topics such as data burden and single source of truth - and -  if data is a science or an art.