His ability recognised, arrangements were made for him to spend two years at the University of Illinois to study for a master's degree in electrical engineering (awarded 1959).
On his return to Britain his call-up for National Service was deferred to enable him to take employment with Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd at Borehamwood, Hertfordshire – on behalf of the Ministry of Aviation.
He worked for two years at Elliott Brothers as research engineer in charge of the advanced circuits and logical techniques group in the Data Processing Laboratory.
He was immediately seconded to the Cambridge University Press where he employed his experiences with PDP-7 display in a project to design and implement a computerised type-setting system.
Towards the end of 1977 he set up a consultancy company Fendragon Ltd with Kindersley and J. Harradine as directors (later joined by M.J. Jordan and P. Robinson), which operated in text processing and related areas.
He ran the Diploma course in computer science, looked after general graduate admissions and played a key role in the establishment of the hardware laboratory for undergraduate practical work.