Sue Black
Boards keep approving technology investment while the underlying talent base narrows. Roles go unfilled, women still leave the sector at scale, and the people who could be retrained sit outside the recruitment funnel. The question is no longer whether to invest in digital capability. It is who is in the room when those decisions are made, and who is being trained to deliver them.
Sue Black is a computer scientist and Professor at Durham University who helps organisations widen their technology talent base and rethink how digital skills are built across the workforce.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Sue Black
- A sitting computer science professor who has also run a social enterprise that retrains women into tech roles at scale, so the talent argument is grounded in operational evidence, not advocacy.
- Author of the Saving Bletchley Park campaign and book, a working case study in using social media to mobilise public, political and corporate support around a single goal.
- Founded BCSWomen in 2001 and TechUPWomen in 2019, giving her two decades of named programmes to draw on when discussing pipeline, retention, and reskilling.
- OBE for services to technology, FBCS CITP, FRSA; the credentials boards expect when commissioning a technology keynote, without the corporate-speaker generic register.
- Bridges technical authority and lived experience. Left school at 16, returned through adult education to a PhD in software engineering, which gives the talent and inclusion argument personal weight that lands with mixed audiences.
Biography highlights
- Professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist, Durham University.
- OBE for services to technology, 2016 New Year Honours.
- Founder, BCSWomen (2001), the UK’s first online network for women in technology.
- Founder, #techmums (2013) and TechUPWomen (2019), retraining women into tech careers.
- Author, Saving Bletchley Park (Unbound, 2015), Amazon UK bestseller and record-setting Unbound crowdfund.
- First recipient of the BCS John Ivinson medal; Lovie Awards Lifetime Achievement winner, 2018.
Biography
The technology talent gap is not principally a recruitment problem. It is a pipeline problem, an inclusion problem and a retraining problem, and most organisations are not structured to address any of the three. Sue Black has spent twenty-five years building the practical answers in public, on national platforms, and inside the British computer science establishment.
She is Professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist at Durham University, where her academic work sits alongside the operational delivery of TechUPWomen, the retraining programme she founded in 2019. TechUPWomen reports nearly 600 women retrained into technology careers with an average salary uplift of around GBP 6,000, a rare instance of a tech-inclusion initiative reporting measurable economic outcomes for participants.
Her track record on mobilisation is equally specific. Between 2008 and 2011 she led the Saving Bletchley Park campaign, which used early social media to recruit politicians, journalists and corporate sponsors behind the restoration of the WWII codebreaking site. Her account of the campaign, Saving Bletchley Park, became the fastest-funded title on Unbound and an Amazon UK bestseller. She founded BCSWomen in 2001, served as its chair until 2008, and was the first recipient of the BCS John Ivinson medal.
She holds an OBE for services to technology, is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and Chartered IT Professional, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. The 2018 Lovie Awards recognised her career with a Lifetime Achievement award, and she has been invited to address the United Nations on women’s rights twice. The credentials are unusual in combination: a sitting academic chair, a national campaigning record, and two operational social enterprises with named outputs.
Key speaking topics
- Women in technology and the future tech workforce
- Digital skills and reskilling at scale
- Diversity and inclusion in computer science
- Social media as a tool for organisational and public campaigns
- The history and legacy of Bletchley Park
- Future of technology and digital transformation
- Personal reinvention and adult learning into tech careers
Ideal for
- CHROs and heads of talent rebuilding the technology pipeline beyond traditional graduate channels
- Technology and digital transformation leaders accountable for diversity, retention and reskilling targets
- DEI and ERG sponsors who need an evidenced voice on women in tech rather than a motivational one
- Conferences in technology, financial services and public sector seeking a senior keynote with academic and operational credibility
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of what works in retraining women into technology roles, drawn from named programmes with reported outcomes
- A grounded picture of the UK technology pipeline and where corporate intervention has measurable effect
- A working example, Bletchley Park, of how a small team can mobilise public and corporate support around a single objective using digital channels
- Personal credibility for the reskilling case: an academic who reached a chair through adult education herself
- Confidence to challenge the standard “women in tech” narrative with evidence rather than aspiration