Swindon & Wiltshire’s Most Inspiring Women 2025| Lucy Collins

To mark International Women’s Day 2025 on 8th March, we’re celebrating Swindon & Wiltshire’s most inspiring women.

Through our website and social media channels, we asked our readers which women in our community inspire them and created this list. The list will be featured in our Spring magazine and every weekday throughout March we are profiling and championing each of these fantastic women online and via our social feeds.

Today we put the spotlight on Lucy Collins, Director at Web Usability.

Tell us more about you and your work
I am the owner of Web Usability, a user research and accessibility consultancy, and proud mum to three girls (Rowan, Billie, Joey) and one dog (Zola).

In my role heading up Web Usability, I am passionate about giving people the user evidence they need to create digital experiences that work for all. With a decade of experience in the user experience (UX) space, my mission is to prioritise the needs of users while balancing the needs of our clients’ organisations to create online experiences that are enjoyable to use and accessible to all.

As a business leader, I am an advocate for creating a company culture that prioritises balance and the well-being of my staff alongside the opportunity for growth and development.

As a Mum, I will always put my girls first and work flexibly to achieve that. Creating a future where they can choose to be whoever they want, however they want is my aim.

What are you most proud of?
I am most proud of navigating matrescence – my journey into motherhood – while also acquiring and leading Web Usability.

My company was founded by my parents, in 2002. When I joined them seven years ago, I never expected to one day run the business and felt daunted by the prospect. Fast forward to 2024, I had just had my third child and an opportunity to acquire the business in full presented itself, all within the space of three months.

I came back from 12 weeks of maternity leave, 100% owner of Web Usability and feeling energised to honour the legacy my parents had built but also evolve the business to reflect me and my values.

Today, we are still at the beginning of this new chapter for Web Usabilty, there is a lot I want to do. But I also have a young family and being present for them is one of the great privileges of running your own business.

I don’t always achieve harmony, but when I do get it right, I feel really proud of myself.

How does it feel to be recognised as one of Swindon & Wiltshire’s Most Inspiring Women?
My first instinct in response to this question was to minimise or somehow undermine this recognition. I think that’s natural when you receive praise? Particularly when it’s something as noble as being described as an ‘inspiration’.

But the truth is, I feel immensely honoured. When you run your own business, it can feel very lonely. A lot rides on you and the decisions you make and there is often doubt about whether they are the right ones.

So to read the nominations made by my team and be recognised on this list, I feel empowered. I feel like the decisions I am making are the right ones and that I should trust my gut. It’s got me this far so it must be doing something right! Thank you to the TBE for including me on the 2025 list.

What does International Women’s Day mean to you?
I am constantly surrounded by women. My employees are mostly women, my children are girls. Even my dog is female.

For me, celebrating and empowering women is an every day occurrence and something I love doing. We rise by lifting others is a sentiment I truly believe in and I feel at my best when I am championing and cheerleading other women.

International Women’s Day gives me a dedicated opportunity to do my favourite thing and shout out all the amazing women in my life. It also gives us as society space to showcase everything that is incredible about women. We are resilient, we are empathetic and we are collaborative. These are just a few of the many traits that make women so powerful and any opportunity we have to shout about this, is a welcome one.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme is #AccelerateAction. Where would you like to see change fast when it comes to equality?
Better support for entrepreneurial mothers.

Finding work/life balance is a challenge for everyone. But when you own and run your own business and want to have a baby, there is a unique set of challenges faced by women that the current infrastructure does not fully recognise or support, putting them at a disadvantage next to their male counterparts.

Taking time off as a business owner is often not an option – you are responsible for driving sales, managing staff and delivering the work. Statutory Maternity Allowance (the pay self-employed women are entitled to) goes no way to covering the costs of running a business that might allow an entrepreneurial mother to take more than a few weeks off after a baby is born. And if you do take it, you effectively have to cease all operations in your business, which for many business owners is not a viable option.

This is just one of the many challenges entrepreneurial mothers face. Others include a lack of workplace protection, ineffective childcare provision and limited mental health support.

Yet being self-employed or a freelancer is highly compatible with being a mum, allowing you to set your own hours and prioritise work around family. If we can better support this community and remove the barriers currently faced, there is the opportunity for many more women to take this leap and potentially give women who are excluded from employed settings due to childcare barriers a whole new realm of possibilities.

The Business and Babies campaign, a cause I’m an ambassador for, is working to change the status quo for entrepreneurial mothers. Find out more on their website www.businessandbabies.co.uk

What piece of advice would you share with your younger self?
Stop trying to please everyone and it is ok not to be happy.

I am a lifelong people pleaser. Consistently described as bubbly and conscientious in every school report, I’ve always felt this immense pressure to be ‘the happy one’ who ‘never made a fuss’.

In 2023, my second daughter was stillborn. Suddenly, I had this valid reason to not be happy, to grieve, and while it is not an experience I would wish on anyone it allowed me to become comfortable with sadness. It also allowed me to start saying no to people when I didn’t feel up to something. This was hugely liberating.

18 months on from this, I feel I’ve stretched my emotional range to now find solace in both the happy and sad moments. I set boundaries to protect myself and my family and I feel much more comfortable advocating for myself.

I believe this has also made me a better business leader as I now have the confidence to handle challenging client requests or work with my team to tackle potentially uncomfortable conversations.
I wish it hadn’t taken such a traumatic experience to help me find this clarity but I am grateful to have come away from it with something positive.

To find out more about Web Usability visit: www.webusability.co.uk

This feature is sponsored by Unividual – Financial Planners for unique individuals. Cherie-Anne Baxter-Blyth, Strategy & Marketing Director at Unividual, said, “We’re supporting the TBE Swindon & Wiltshire Most Inspiring Women list 2025 as we want to help celebrate some of the unsung heroes in our community that deserve both praise and recognition.”