CW@60: The day I accidentally found my life’s work

<div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-60-anniversary-logo-white-400px.jpg" alt="Computer Weekly 60th anniversary logo" width="226" height="117"> </div> <p><i>On 22 September 2026, Computer Weekly turns 60. To mark the milestone, we asked some of our friends - experts, parliamentarians, IT leaders and suppliers - for their perspectives on how tech has changed their lives over six decades. What's changed the most for you since then?</i></p> <p>When I left school in May 1980, I wasn’t looking for a career in computing. I was due to join the Royal Navy in six months’ time and hoped to work in radar and electronics. In the meantime, I needed a job.</p> <p>A youth training scheme placement seemed like a sensible way to fill the gap. It certainly wasn’t part of some grand plan - but something happened that changed everything. I found myself at the GKN Screw and Fasteners factory in Smethwick, near Birmingham.</p> <p>The factory is long gone, of course, and speaks to a different industrial age. At the time of the First World War, GKN produced more than half the screws and one-quarter of nuts and bolts manufactured in the UK. In the Second World War, the site was part of Britain’s massive wartime manufacturing effort. GKN itself dates back to the birth of the Industrial Revolution. And here’s me, a fresh-faced 16-year-old about to become part of the new industrial revolution of the late 20th century: IT.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Brian Wilson hires me (not that one)"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Brian Wilson hires me (not that one)</h2> <p>I was interviewed at GKN by a guy called Brian Wilson. As someone who was into music, that made me smile. We shared a surname, and it turned out his son was also called Mark. Brian and I got on well. So a few days later, I had a fateful message to phone the local careers office. I’d got the placement.</p> <p>As part of the scheme, I spent time in different company departments. One day I walked into the computer room. There was <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645760/AI-is-making-the-mainframe-harder-to-retire-not-easier">a mainframe - I’d never seen anything like it</a>. What on Earth was this?</p> <p>I’d done some computer studies at school but this was a different planet. It wasn’t just the machines - it was the atmosphere. The quiet sense that important work was under way, and it was all taking place behind the scenes. The more I learned about the mainframe, the more I realised it was the computer that drove the world. And virtually no-one else seemed to know this.</p> <p>It was like I’d been introduced to a secret world.</p> <p>I was fascinated. A few months later, there was an opportunity to stay, and I grabbed it with both hands. And I’ve never really left.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="A lifelong affair"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>A lifelong affair</h2> <p>Looking back, people sometimes ask why I stayed with a technology that <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Write-side-up-by-Freeform-Dynamics/Mainframe-Skills-Challenge-or-Opportunity">seems to be declared dead every five years</a> or so. The honest answer is that I never felt I was staying with old technology. I was following ideas and problems that never stopped changing.</p> <p>After four months on the training scheme an opportunity arose at GKN as a trainee operator, which I took. It was now clear that a life on the ocean waves wasn’t for me. My head had been turned. Within three years, I was the youngest senior operator at GKN. I was even considered as a shift leader, although perhaps thanks to my spiky hair and leather jacket, management decided somebody else might be a better role model. Looking back, I can’t say I blame them.</p> <blockquote> <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/Mark-Wilson-Vertali-LinkedIn.jpg" alt="Photo of Mark Wilson, technical director at Vertali" width="180" height="180"> </div> <p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong><span style="color: #34495e;">“I've spent decades doing exactly the same thing - trying to understand how complicated systems fit together. Sometimes they’re made of pistons and carburettors, sometimes they’re made of operating systems and security software”</span></strong></span></p> <p><span style="color: #34495e;"><em>Mark Wilson</em></span></p> </blockquote> <p>By 1986, I’d moved into contracting. I found myself working in some of the biggest datacentres in the country. Every customer was different. Every installation had its own history. Every system had evolved in its own way. My appetite for new experiences has never diminished.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Hidden in plain sight"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Hidden in plain sight</h2> <p>People often imagine the mainframe as one thing - it isn’t. It’s thousands of different environments solving thousands of different business issues. And that’s what has sustained and nourished me throughout my career.</p> <p>It’s also one of the reasons why explaining my job to friends and family has never been that easy, particularly in the 1980s with the rise of desktop and home computing. You work in computers? Well, yes, but not like that. And yet...</p> <p>Every time one of those people withdrew cash, booked a flight, paid by credit card or did the weekly shop, there was a good chance a mainframe was involved. The platform has always been hidden in plain sight. And here I was, part of a world that nobody else could see.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Reports of my demise..."> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Reports of my demise...</h2> <p>In 1991, technology columnist Stewart Alsop famously predicted that the last mainframe would be unplugged on 15 March 1996. I remember thinking, how could that be even possible? And what would happen to the world if that was true? I’ve heard many similar claims over the years, with new technology coming and going. PCs, client/server, distributed systems, the cloud. One of my managers advised me to learn something else because “mainframes won’t last.” I didn’t ignore the advice, I just disagreed with the conclusion.</p> <p>Technology changes. It always has. The mainframe changed too. So here we are, 30 years later, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366610512/Mainframe-teams-turn-to-AI-for-modernisation-gains">talking about mainframe modernisation</a>, cloud services, APIs and AI. The platform survived not because it resisted change but because it adapted. And with it, my job changed. That’s what kept it interesting and fresh. How we managed systems changed. Workloads changed. Security changed.</p> <p>What never changed is the need for systems that people can trust with their money, their businesses, and their lives.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="It’s a people thing"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>It’s a people thing</h2> <p>Sometimes people think that what kept me interested was the technology alone. That’s not true. The bigger reason is people. The mainframe community has always been remarkably generous with its time and knowledge, something I don’t see in many other industries.</p> <p>I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has helped me to solve a problem just because they enjoyed solving problems. That willingness to share is something I’ve never taken for granted.</p> <p>The mainframe speaks to my essence. I’m an engineer at heart and motorbikes are my other great passion. Both the mainframe and motorbikes speak to my curiosity about how complex things work, my love for taking things apart, diagnosing and solving faults, and putting them back together. If the mainframe is my one true love, then I’m afraid motorbikes represent a succession of girlfriends over the years.</p> <p>Both bike and Big Iron require the same methodical engineering mindset. And both come with amazing communities of people attached. Looking back, I realise I've spent decades doing exactly the same thing - trying to understand how complicated systems fit together. Sometimes they’re made of pistons and carburettors, sometimes they’re made of operating systems and security software.</p> <p>I’ve often described myself as an accidental tourist. None of this was planned. I’m here thanks to the fact that I strolled into a computer room one day and I never really walked out again.</p> <p>People sometimes ask why I stayed with mainframes for so long. The truth is, I’ve never stayed still. As the technology kept changing, I kept learning. It always gave me something new to learn.</p> <p>I’ve never done a day’s work in my life. I’ve simply spent the last 46 years being curious.</p> <p><i>Mark Wilson is technical director at Vertali.</i></p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read all of Computer Weekly's 60th anniversary essays</h3> <p>Technology is changing the way we live and work like never before – touching people’s lives every day, opening up new opportunities and creating new challenges.</p> <p>So for our 60^th anniversary, we wanted to reflect on the human stories of how the digital revolution has changed the lives of some of the key leaders and influencers in tech today. Read our full collection of essays, which offers a unique set of insights and perspectives into the changes we have seen during Computer Weekly's first 60 years.</p> <h2><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/essentialguide/CW60-How-technology-has-changed-our-lives-over-60-years">CW@60 - How technology has changed our lives over 60 years</a></h2> </div> </div> </section>