On social media the 30-year-old gave her location as London, but she is believed to have grown up in Hong Kong before attending Malvern St James girls' boarding school in Worcestershire.
She also spent time at a Chinese international school and is said to have spoken Mandarin.
Ms Dykes went on to study anthropology at the University of Manchester before doing a Masters in International Security and Global Governance at Birkbeck, University of London.
At the time of her murder the 30-year-old was working for the UK government in the Lebanese capital Beirut and had been in the job since January 2017.
According to her LinkedIn page, she was programme and policy manager for the Department for International Development (DfID) working on the Government's Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) programme.
She started with the department in 2014 and had also worked for the Foreign Office as an Iraq research analyst and a policy manager with the Libya team.
Ms Dykes had been due to fly home for Christmas last Saturday.
Police are now investigating how she ended up dead by a highway east of Beirut and whether she was raped before being strangled.