Rory Cellan-Jones was a reporter for the BBC for 30 years, covering business and technology stories for much of that time. He joined the BBC as a researcher on Look North in 1981, moving to London to work as a producer in the TV Newsroom and on Newsnight. His on-screen career began as reporter for Wales Today in Cardiff, from where he moved to London as a reporter on Breakfast Time. He quickly transferred to business coverage, working across the BBC’s output from the Money Programme to Newsnight, from the Today programme to the 10 O'Clock News. 

At the beginning of 2007 he was appointed Technology Correspondent with a brief to expand the BBC’s coverage of the impact of the internet on business and society. In 2014, he began presenting a new weekly programme Tech Tent on the BBC World Service and in 2001 his first book Dot Bomb, a critically acclaimed account of Britain’s dot com bubble, was published. In 2021, Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era documented his experiences reporting on the smartphone era. It was described by Stephen Fry as “delightfully insightful and intensely readable.” His memoir Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC based on the thousands of letters he found after his mother died was published in 2023 to universal acclaim from critics and readers alike.

In recent years he has investigated the role technology can play in improving the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease, having been diagnosed with the condition in 2019. In 2023 he joined with five other people with Parkinson’s to launch Movers and Shakers, a podcast about living with the condition which has become a surprise hit. In 2021, he was made an Honorary Fellow of The National Museum of Computing in recognition of his services to technology education. 

Since leaving the BBC, he has become an independent technology consultant, writer and broadcaster. He has also started a newsletter about health tech, one of his major interests.