Creative, Culture & Heritage

With over 22 years of research and consultancy experience, Andy has a strong track record of delivering high-quality assignments for public and private sector clients. He has a diverse portfolio of work covering the arts, culture, and heritage as well as social welfare advice, employability, education, community safety, health, and social care. He has delivered consultancy assignments for a range of clients across the UK including DCMS, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Violence Reduction Partnerships, Carers Trust, English Heritage, Welsh Government, Groundwork UK, Youth Sport Trust, Visit Scotland, Skills for Care, Age UK, The King’s Trust and Arts Council England.

Andy is a specialist in delivering formative and summative evaluation studies and evidence reviews. He has a background in evaluating area-based and community-led regeneration programmes and formative and summative evaluations of capital projects within the heritage sector. In the arts and cultural sector, Andy has worked to increase participation across the sector, assessing programmes aimed at diversifying funding streams and building resilience within arts and cultural organisations.

Andy has hands-on experience in public sector service delivery drawn from roles within the police and the NHS.  He has a strong track record of leading research projects within the health and social care sector, including work exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics in adult social care.

In addition to his undergraduate degree in Geography, Andy has an MPhil in Geography and a Postgraduate Diploma (with distinction) in Urban Policy & Regeneration. He is also a member of the Social Research Association and the UK Evaluation Society. Outside of work Andy takes a keen (friends would say obsessive) interest in local history and is a regular visitor to historic properties and heritage sites. Andy is also a keen cross-fit enthusiast as well as a fanatic football supporter.

Nikki has a professional background in heritage and joined Wavehill following the completion of her doctoral research in Landscape Archaeology at University of Exeter. Her academic achievements also include a MA (with Distinction) in Landscape Management and Environmental Archaeology and BA (First Class Hons) in Archaeology (environmental). Nikki worked at Royal Commission for Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales for a number of years, where she was responsible for maintaining and updating the National Monuments Record for Wales (NMRW). Her experience as a field archaeologist with commercial archaeology units in England and Wales has equipped her with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the historic environment and the implementation of heritage-focused projects and schemes. She is an active volunteer, as a committee member for the Council for British Archaeology Wales (since 2013) and Secretary of Menter Silian Community Benefit Society (since 2020).

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At Wavehill, Nikki specialises in heritage and community-focused evaluation across Wales, and is passionate about supporting and empowering organisations to become more resilient through their evaluation activities. This includes the co-production of monitoring and evaluation frameworks and supporting organisations to embed data capture and evaluation techniques into their day-to-day practice. Nikki possesses strong qualitative and quantitative research skills and collaborates with clients to develop and tailor research tools for different audiences and stakeholder groups, including those who are harder to reach. Nikki has extensive experience of conducting in-depth interviews for a wide range of research projects. She has excellent report writing skills, ensuring clarity, coherence, and compliance with required standards.

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In her free time, Nikki likes nothing better than exploring early medieval churches and other archaeological sites. She also enjoys spending time in nature and is a keen trail runner (but at a relaxed pace, with plenty of stops to photograph interesting things).

Michael joined Wavehill as a Senior Consultant with five years of experience working in economic development, regeneration and related fields. He is an experienced project manager specialising in local, regional and national evaluations, socio-economic impact assessments and appraisals. As a result, he has had the opportunity to work with a range of clients and organisations comprising of central government departments, local authorities, local enterprise partnerships, universities, sector bodies and the private sector. Michael brings expertise across a range of policy areas, including business and sector support, research and innovation, energy and low carbon studies, and place- and culture-led regeneration.

Prior to consultancy work, Michael worked as a Research Assistant at the Bank of England where he gained experience with data collection, manipulation and analysis, using multiple statistical software, building from his academic background. He is an expert at presenting results clearly, effectively, and succinctly to key decision makers.

Michael completed both an undergraduate and postgraduate degree in Economics at the University of Bath and University College of London, respectively. He is also a member of the UK Evaluation Society and was one of 50 mentees in the 2017/18 Global EvalYouth Initiative which aimed to promote the next generation of evaluators worldwide.

Outside of work Michael enjoys travelling, discovering new restaurants and trying and failing at most sports including water-based sports despite his inability to swim.

An economics graduate from UWE Sarah has a detailed understanding of research design, conducting interviews and quantitative data analysis. Specialising in evaluations involving young people and hard-to-reach groups, she has delivered many evaluations and research pieces including issues such as youth provision, youth crime, employability, and other evaluation topics.

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Sarah works on projects across the Wavehill portfolio, both in the North-East and the rest of the UK, with clients in the public and third sector looking at violence prevention, nature connection and engagement with heritage, to name a few. Sarah has over 12 years’ experience working as a youth worker and mentor with young people from many different backgrounds.

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With a focus on qualitative research, Sarah has experience of critically evaluating data in ways that contribute to learning and enable sustainable change. Within this, she is well-versed in liaising with a variety of stakeholders and communities through various participatory methods, to ensure the research findings are representative of those they are impacting.

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Outside of work, Sarah spends her time travelling to numerous gigs and festivals, going to the gym or on outdoor adventures.