The year of scandals, elections, euro-finals, Donald Trump’s return, and Gary Lineker’s retirement from MOTD. As the year draws to a close, and we hope for a decent summer, we look back at some of our 2024 highlights.
Ben Farr: Working with such awesome colleagues. We have a fantastic team here, and I really enjoy working with everyone. Another great year
Nick Williams: As the moderator of a discussion group, it’s always nice to see evidence that respondents feel relaxed. Moderating an online group this year, one of my participants spent the whole session with one cat sitting on each shoulder. No reference was made to the presence of the cats, and my respondent contributed to the discussion as if this was the most ordinary thing in the world. For the last 10 minutes of the group, a third cat joined in, sitting on the respondent’s head. Again, no mention was made, and this awesome respondent continued to make valuable contributions to the discussion.
Phil Reilly: Becoming a Dad 
Kay Rossiter-Base: Moving back to London after a few decades away, so I’ve given up the commute and can walk to work! Delighted that our team was successful in our bid to win the new Public Service Media Tracker for Ofcom.
James Hopkins: Working again with the fantastic Money and Pensions Service team to deliver their combined Debt Need and Financial Health surveys, using robustly sampled mixed method work. Incredibly rewarding seeing our design come to fruition for such a useful and high-profile piece of fieldwork research, moving financial well-being amongst UK adults higher up the agenda.
Traveling to Singapore to watch an awesome Formula 1 night race witnessing a commanding Lando Norris win.
Neil Moss: It was suggested that I write something here about winning the office Bake Off sweepstake but as the hardest worker in the company I thought I’d mention that instead, thank you to all for keeping me busy in 2024!! (and well done Georgie)
Sarah Connis: It’s always inspiring to work on projects which have a positive outcome for disadvantaged groups in society, so a particular highlight of 2024 was working with Age UK to complete an evaluation of their benefits check programme. (For further details see the press release here)
Jon Wood: Whilst working at St Georges Park on a project assessing the Disability Cup 2024 for The FA, I had the privilege of enjoying one of the finals with David Clarke OBE. David is England’s highest all-time goal scorer with an amazing 128 goals in 144 matches. What an amazing man.
Pat Fraser: Being told that at age 47 I have a metabolic age of 34. My wife said the machine was broken!
Ellen King: My highlight has been working on the ABRSM Making Music project. It’s nice to research something that people are so passionate about. Music is a very important thing to me (as it is to a lot of people), so it’s exciting to work with an organisation that is so dedicated to improving music education and access, on a project that is focused on the future of music.
Steve Pick: Being involved in a piece of work for one of our biggest clients proved there are interesting findings to be had in any research piece. Even in this case, about the types of doors found on refrigeration units in Convenience stores.
Sam Day: Managing our largest face-to-face project in the shortest period with our fantastic field team. That, and placing the Arsenal corner flag on the first game of the season.
Nigel Marriott: Moving the business servers with minimal perceived impact on the business, and Kieran with his fake teeth in MAFS.
Billy Pratt: Professionally I’ve enjoyed doing more in-person qualitative work and visiting places from St George’s Park, the training base of the England football teams, to petrol stations in Essex. I entered the industry out of the pandemic, so it’s been rare for me to do this much, but I hope 2025 sees more clients looking for more in-situ insights because it’s fun! Personally, being elected to the board of directors for my local non-league football club Fisher FC was a real highlight.
Karen Dowley: My highlight was my daughter graduating from university. They say laughter is the best medicine, so amongst all of the hard (and sometimes stressful) work, working with people who make coming to the office enjoyable is priceless.
Madison Harris: My highlight has got to be going to Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour (twice!) 😃
Marc Jacobs: My highlight of 2024 was the smoothness of our switchover to our new servers, and how it has enabled me and Nigel to provide a better infrastructure service to our execs. Also the sharpening of my pool skills and our magical Thursday evening get-togethers
Merry Christmas to all of our clients, suppliers, and of course our amazing team.
Here’s to 2025!
Critical Research.
