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Samantha Downes

Samantha Downes is journalist specialising in personal finance, including pensions, investments, life insurance, mortgages and consumer finance issues. She also writes a personal finance Substack: Pumpkin Money and has been a columnist for women's and teenage magazines.

Her work has been published in the i, City A.M and The Sun, as well as specialist publications including Pensions Expert, FTAdviser and Mortgage Solutions.

Samantha has used her writing and SEO skills to help write educational material around finance including guides on finances and divorce for parenting support website Dad.info. She also contributes to the National Union of Journalist's member magazine The Journalist and worked for the BBC World Service on its iPlayer archive project.

Samantha Downes

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Experience

Samantha is an NCTJ-trained journalist who started her career on local newspapers including the Harrow Observer.

Samantha went on to specialise in financial journalism as a reporter on Financial Adviser, covering pensions and breaking news.

In 1999 she worked as a breaking news reporter on FT.com. She then went on to write for the consumer section of the IPC Magazine website BeMe.com and from there to help out at the Freeserve money portal.

Samantha has worked as a broadcast journalist for the BBC World Service and BBC London.

She is a member of the National Union of Journalists and sits on The Journalist's editorial advisory board (JEAB).

Samantha has also worked with many of the UK's main financial institutions and FTSE companies as a copywriter; including Mercer, L&G, Royal London, Barclays, interactive investor and Savings United. She has also been a media trainer and a lecturer in journalism.

Qualifications

Samantha has a post graduate certificate in newspaper journalism awarded by the National Council for the Training of Journalists. She has a BA Hons in government and an MA in creative writing.

Skills

Samantha has digital online and editing skills and is familiar with WordPress, and Adobe editing packages. She also has shorthand (90wpm) and typing (80wpm - RSA stage 2)