Michael Sage

Part of the IT Leaders 100 - a list of the most influential IT leaders in the UK in 2026.

Michael Sage is an award-winning IT leader and Digital Transformation specialist with over 25 years of experience across the public and private sectors. He currently serves as a Head of IT within a major local authority, Chelmsford City Council, and is looking forward to the digital opportunities in LGR. Michael excels at bridging the gap between technical complexity and cultural change, specialising in cloud migrations, Office 365 deployments, and complex infrastructure transitions.

A Fellow of the BCS, he is dedicated to driving operational excellence and empowering organisations through passionate, people-centric leadership and innovative technology solutions.

He still loves playing with technology in all its forms.

What's the most exciting part of your current role?

Local Government Review, the opportunity to reinvent local government IT from a near greenfield site. Working with other IT teams to grow a truly data and resident focused service.

What do you do in week one of a new project to avoid pain in month six?

Talk to stakeholders, come up with a wireframe MVP in the first couple of meetings to stop scope creep. Listen to what people want from the project rather than what they might be staying.

What’s the part of your estate you most want to simplify in 2026?

Data! In simple terms the data retention and data cleansing needed before LGR takes place is going to be immense, the more partners that have their data in order the easier the programme becomes.

Excluding smartphones, what piece of technology could you not live without and why?

My Kindle, I read a lot! I have the Kindle Scribe and consuming technical and fiction books is so easy, I would say I read between 1-2 hours a day, so eInk is the way!

What excites you most about the future of IT?

Weirdly I think slow tech is probably the most exciting thing, I've been playing with eInk devices this past 12 months and I can see so many opportunities for use, from meeting rooms, visitors’ tags, note-taking etc

What talent are you quietly proud of that would never show up on LinkedIn?

I love building Lego and building model railways - not very cool, but it brings me joy.

We have a big shelf dedicated to our Lego builds and I have two or three shelves of 00, 0 and N gauge locos and am planning a layout this year (I have said this for the last five years).

What’s your most-used keyboard shortcut or command that you wish everyone knew?

I probably have two or three I use the most, coming up in IT. Win + L is used a lot when I leave my desk, and Ctrl + c and Ctrl + v are oldies but goldies.