In the summer of 2003, Pinder was spotted by a freelance photographer while sunbathing on Bournemouth beach. As a result of the photographs taken that day, she signed a professional modelling contract with the Daily Star tabloid newspaper.
Pinder was regularly partnered with Michelle Marsh, with whom she made magazine, television, and corporate appearances. She has also been featured with other glamour models, including Danielle Lloyd, Sophie Howard, Jana Defi, Lindsey Strutt, and Saskia Howard-Clarke. Her photo shoots have appeared in magazines such as Loaded, Maxim, Nuts, ZOO, Ice, Carnoisseur, Redline and Fast Car. She has appeared in prominent adverts for PlayStation 2, Yellow Pages, the National Lottery and in 2010 she was head of the Bennetts Babe squad.
For the first several years of her career, Pinder, unlike most other glamour models, did not fully reveal her breasts in photo shoots, often posing while covering her nipples with her hands or hair. While she often appeared exposing part of the areola, her first completely topless photographs appeared in Nuts magazine in April 2007. In the accompanying interview, Pinder explained that she was initially reluctant to go fully topless "because of the way I was discovered on a beach. It was all a bit sudden and the idea of getting [my breasts] out straight away was a bit daunting."
Pinder currently runs a weekly advice column in Nuts, entitled "The Truth About Women," and also has embarked on a television career. She is represented by Girl Management aka Girl and Frank White Pictures.
In November 2010, Lucy announced that she will be writing a weekly column for Laid.co.uk, answering readers' questions. She posed topless in Nuts magazine's Royal wedding commemorative issue of April 2011.
