LAURA Harvey was working in a job she didn’t enjoy and didn’t know what to do next.

Now 18 months into a three-year apprenticeship with BT, Miss Harvey, 22, has been named as one of the UK’s most inspirational people in science, technology, engineering and maths.

As part of her prize for being the Most Inspirational Technician, presented by STEMNET, which aims to create opportunities for young people in science, technology, engineering and maths, she travelled to the famous Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Switzerland last week.

“It was a great experience,” said Miss Harvey, a Colchester Sixth Form pupil, of St Andrew’s Avenue, in Colchester.

“We were able to see a lot of things visitors normally wouldn’t because they were carrying out maintenance so we could see inside the machines.”

The 27km long proton collider, which scientists use to find undiscovered particles, is built between 50metres and 100metres underground.

Miss Harvey added: “After I left college, I was working in a restaurant and I didn’t really know what to do and when I saw about the apprenticeship with BT, I just went for it.”

Now Miss Harvey is involved in encouraging school leavers to pursue science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.

“When I was in sixth form, it was either you went to university or fell off the wagon, that’s what it felt like, but I think it’s changing now.”

Miss Harvey, a software engineer, is based in Martlesham, near Ipswich.