On returning to the UK he undertook doctoral research at the Royal Academy of Music, supervised by Simon Bainbridge.
[3] He won the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize in 2008,[4] leading to a commission from the Wigmore Hall for the Aronowitz Ensemble (To See the Dark Between, 2010).
[5] In 2011, the London Sinfonietta commission and premiere of Candlebird, a song cycle to texts by Don Paterson, led to critical acclaim.
[13] Other influences include Scottish folk music – Suckling was a fiddle player in several ceilidh bands in his teens – and literature, especially poetry.
In addition to music for the concert hall, Suckling has also composed music designed to be encountered online: these bones, this flesh, this skin, which received a Classical:NEXT Innovation Award in 2021,[14] and the 'game-for-music' Black Fell, an opera / videogame hybrid.