Catherine Hughes - Nottingham Girls' High School 1977-82
Blackheath High School 1982-1984

Career Pathway in Sport

National Development Manager
Womens Sports Foundation

I work as a Manager in a national sports organisation, and have responsibility for a network of volunteers who deliver national policy and programmes at a regional level.

My particular organisation works to promote opportunities for women and girls to participate in sport and physical activity, and so from day to day, I can be meeting the Minister for Sport, the next giving an interview on women’s sport to a national newspaper, and then speaking to a woman who wants to play football but does not know a local women’s club.

Careers in Sport are very varied and can encompass sports development, where opportunities to participate in sport are developed, to lecturing or teaching, to sports journalism, to being a high performance athlete representing your country, to being a sports coach and to be a manager like myself.  There has been a huge increase in qualifications available to study to gain entry into the sports industry, many of which are offered by the newly established universities and colleges.  My studying experience is not particularly relevant, as when I left school in 1984, there was very little choice regarding ‘studying sport’.  Indeed it appeared that the only career pathway was to become a PE teacher, which wasn’t what I wanted to do! I had always had a keen interest in sport, representing the county for 5 years at athletics and the school in swimming and netball.  I was the archetypal sporty kid!  University gave me the chance to continue participating in sport, whilst I studied for a degree in archaeology, although I had no plans to seek a career via sport.  After university I started working in the sales and marketing industries.

I started a career in sport almost by accident. In 1994, I was still working in the sales and marketing field both in this country and abroad.   I was contacted by a friend, who was lecturing on a sports course at a college, and asked if I could contribute to the marketing module. Before I knew it, I was lecturing more and more, and two years later decided to work full time in a sports organisation.  If you wish to take a more formal approach to planning a career in sport, I would suggest that the two most important attributes are to have a passion for sport, and to do as much as possible voluntarily.  In some ways, it is easy to have a passion for sport, because it tends to attract only the passionate, particularly if you are a woman.  To get involved, sport is primarily organised and delivered on a voluntary basis, particularly at local level, so if you contacted your local sports development team via your local leisure centre, or the governing body of sport that you enjoy via a sports club, they would welcome your offer to help.  That help could be in setting up a team, supervising children, organising fixtures, and then it could graduate, depending upon your interest, into coaching or officiating and there are formal qualifications you can obtain to support your career development.

If there is a particular area that you are interested in, there are publications, resources and organisations that can help.  There are Careers Guides in Sport and Leisure available via local reference libraries or the internet.  On a personal note, I have found that working in sport is very varied and fulfilling, but can also be quite frustrating, just like most jobs I imagine!  The hours can be long and often involve evening and weekends, but I have never regretted moving into this field.