Anna returned to study at the University of Birmingham after working in journalism and Public Relations (PR). These professions centre around cultivating personal networks and social capital. After having children, she left the journalism/PR sector and spent time working for a small charity focussed on reducing social isolation in later life, which could be described as the ‘flip side’ of social networks. When she came to the University of Birmingham to take the MA Social Research Methods, she encountered the huge body of academic research on the benefits some people get from their social networks. However, not everyone gets access to these benefits. This led to an interest in understanding the barriers to building supportive social networks in a career context, which in turn feeds into a deeper understanding of mechanisms leading to inequality.