[4][5][6] A graduate of the University of Cambridge, Kilburn worked on radar at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) in Malvern supervised by Frederic Calland Williams during the Second World War.

[11] He was given a quick course in electronics, and was posted to the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) in Malvern, where he worked on radar in Group 19 under Frederic Calland Williams.

The principal technical barrier to such a development at that time was the lack of any practical means of storage for data and instructions.

The CRT image soon faded, so they devised a scheme by which it was read and refreshed continually, effectively making the data storage permanent.

[13][14] In December 1946, Williams took up the Edward Stocks Massey Chair of Electrotechnics at the University of Manchester, and recruited Kilburn on secondment from Malvern.

[10] The two developed their storage technology and, in 1948, Kilburn put it to a practical test in constructing the Manchester Baby, which became the first stored-program computer to run a program, on 21 June 1948.

[9] He received the degree of PhD in 1948 for his work at Manchester, writing his thesis on A storage system for use with binary digital computing machines under Williams's supervision.

[15] Kilburn anticipated a return to Malvern but Williams persuaded him to stay to work on the university's collaborative project developing the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercial computer.

[16][17][18] Max Newman withdrew from the project, believing that the development of computers required engineers and not mathematicians at this point, but Williams preferred to return to electrotechnics, leaving Kilburn in charge.

[13][19] The Mark I incorporated innovations such as index registers, and combined CRTs with magnetic drum storage.

[16] The first, commenced in 1951, was a development of the Mark I known as the megacycle machine or Meg, that replaced the vacuum tube diodes with solid state ones.

[10] Kilburn's next project, known as Atlas, aimed to create a fast computer by making maximum use of existing and new technologies.

[26] He was created a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1973,[27] and was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Bath in 1979.

He was a pioneer in the engineering realisation of the general purpose electronic digital computer and has made major contributions to the rapid rate of development that has occurred in this field over the past 15 years.

He claimed that watching Manchester United win the 1968 European Cup Final at Wembley stadium was the best day of his life.