[2] She carried out notable work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, including her electronic arrangement of the theme music to the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who.

[3][4] She has been referred to as "the unsung heroine of British electronic music",[3] having influenced musicians including Aphex Twin, the Chemical Brothers and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital.

[6] Then from September to December, she worked as an assistant to Gerald G. Gross,[6] Head of Plenipotentiary and General Administrative Radio Conferences at the International Telecommunication Union.

[14] In August 1962, she assisted composer Luciano Berio at a two-week summer school at Dartington Hall, for which she borrowed several dozen items of BBC equipment.

[21] In 1964–65, she collaborated with the British artist and playwright Barry Bermange for the BBC's Third Programme to produce four Inventions for Radio, a series of collages of people describing their thoughts on dreams, belief in God, the possibility of life after death, and the experience of old age, voiced over an electronic soundscape.

[22][23] In 1966, working with composer George Newson, she collaborated on the BBC experimental radio drama, The Man Who Collected Sounds with producer Douglas Cleverdon.

[24][25] In 1966 while working at the BBC, Derbyshire, fellow Radiophonic Workshop member Brian Hodgson and EMS founder Peter Zinovieff set up Unit Delta Plus,[1] an organisation which they intended to use to create and promote electronic music.

[29] Many of these recordings, including compositions by Derbyshire using the name "Li De la Russe" (from an anagram of the letters in "Delia" and a reference to her auburn hair) were used on the 1970s ITV science fiction rivals to Doctor Who: The Tomorrow People[30] and Timeslip.

[31] In 1967, Derbyshire provided sound design alongside Guy Woolfenden's score for Peter Hall's production of Macbeth with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

[34] In 1973, Derbyshire left the BBC and worked briefly at Hodgson's Electrophon studio,[1] where she contributed to the soundtrack to the film The Legend of Hell House.

Her final works included two soundtracks for video artists Madelon Hooykaas and Elsa Stansfield on their short films Een van die dagen ("One of These Days") in 1973 and Overbruggen ("About Bridges") in 1975.

[35] Following her music career, Derbyshire worked as a radio operator for a British Gas pipelaying project, in an art gallery, and in a bookshop.

[clarification needed] She also frequented the LYC Museum and Art Gallery established by Chinese artist Li Yuan-chia at his stone farmhouse in Cumbria and worked there as his assistant.

These were entrusted to the composer Mark Ayres, who had salvaged the tape archive of the Radiophonic Workshop, and in 2007 were given on permanent loan to the University of Manchester for preservation.

Subsequent donations to the archive have included items and recordings from Brian Hodgson, Madelon Hooykaas, Jo Hutton and Elisabeth Kozmian.

These collections of material, including Derbyshire's working papers and digitised transfers of the tapes, are accessible at the John Rylands Library in Manchester.

[48] In October 2004, the Tron Theatre in Glasgow hosted Standing Wave, a play written by Nicola McCartney focusing on the life of Derbyshire.

In 2013, the BBC showed a television drama depicting the creation and early days of Doctor Who in 1963, called An Adventure in Space and Time, as part of the celebrations for the programme's 50th anniversary.

[16] A blue plaque was unveiled at Derbyshire's former home of 104 Cedars Avenue, Coventry, on 15 June 2017 as part of a BBC initiative celebrating important musicians and venues.

[61] The ceremony was performed by former Doctor Who actors Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant along with BBC Coventry & Warwickshire presenter Vic Minett.