Woman who swapped HR for Lego building job now creates everything from world’s smallest Primark to Peaky Blinders sets

A former HR worker turned professional Lego builder, who spends her days building masterpieces such as the world’s smallest Primark and The Wizard Of Oz’s Emerald City, has said the construction toy allows people to “step into a different world”.

Michelle worked in HR before she applied for the role without much confidence around five years ago, thinking: “What are the chances?”

While Michelle has bought several “fantastic” Lego sets, she predominantly only builds when she is at work, as “there is no way (she) could keep that much Lego at home”.

“I think it is the mindset of being here to create wonderful things that children are going to love, and adults are going to love, too,” Michelle said.

“Don’t forget, when the children come in, they’re coming with their parents, their grandparents, their uncles, their aunts, their family, their carers – and everybody wants to see something that they can either relate to or recognise from the world around them.

Up until around five years ago, Michelle worked in the HR department at Mitchells & Butlers – one of the largest operators of restaurants, pubs, and bars in the UK.

Since Lego was Michelle’s “favourite toy” as a child, she kept Lego Minifigures around her computer screen, including figurines dressed as a mermaid and a penguin, and some Harry Potter characters.

One day, Michelle’s colleagues asked her, “Have you heard about this job that’s going?” – for the Lego Master Model Builder role in Birmingham – and, after several people mentioned it, Michelle decided to apply and was invited to Brick Factor as part of the hiring process.

Now, Michelle spends her working days building Lego creations – with some admin and other tasks in between – and she has described her job as “creative, exciting, and fun”.

“Being creative is wonderful for me; I’ve been creative since I was younger, and finding a job where I can be creative is wonderful,” Michelle said.

“If you can advise children and encourage them… in today’s society we are told ‘there is one right answer for everything’, however that’s not the case with Lego.

“Your vision of something is what you build.”

Michelle tries to build with Lego every day and constructs anything and everything, from dragons and spiders to the Ghostbusters Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Since Birmingham is home to the world’s largest Primark store, Michelle and her team thought she should create the smallest version for the Discovery Centre’s Miniland attraction – the Lego version of the city, which features more than 1.5 million pieces.

While this particular build stands out, Michelle said it is impossible to choose a favourite creation.

“Every time I get asked to build something, there’s always an element of challenge to that because, chances are, I’ve never built one before.

“But if I have children come up and they say, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing’… that’s really, really good.

Michelle designs and builds everything herself, sometimes using Lego paper – a grid-patterned sheet – or a digital building system beforehand to get an idea of how a build will look.

She said “anything goes” with Lego, but it does not always to go plan first time and she feels it is important for children to understand there is not one right answer.

“You might have a vision in your head, but when it comes to reality, it doesn’t necessarily go through,” she said.

“Part of building with Lego is getting it wrong so that you can get it right.

Michelle said there is never a day where she does not want to build with Lego, and even the admin and cleaning aspects of her job are not “all that bad”.

Meanwhile, the most commonly asked question of Michelle is: “How do I get your job?”

Michelle said Lego has “come such a long way since (she) was a child”, and she hopes to continue working at Legoland Discovery Centre Birmingham, designing and “building wonderful things that people love to see”, because she said: “Who wouldn’t want to stay here?”

“There are more and more people, adults, who are getting into Lego themselves, which I think is amazing because it just goes to show that it isn’t just for kids,” she said.

“Everybody can get something out of Lego… it’s a wonderful thing.”