Lesley worked as a visual merchandising trainer and judge for the World Skills competition and has travelled to Spain to train international visual merchandisers at Inditex head office. In 2017, she wrote and delivered a bespoke training course for Harrods' personal interiors shopping team, responding to a brief that requested interior theory, vocabulary and space planning methodologies. This was delivered at Central Saint Martins for two consecutive years.
She joined Solent in 2007 as an associate lecturer and became a senior lecturer in 2018. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has an MA in Interior Design with Distinction.