Last year's position : 44

Knighted after almost a decade of work on the Human Genome Project, Sir John spearheaded the UK side of the genetic sequencing project as director of the Sanger Institute.

Making a slight improvement on last year but still residing in the lower reaches of the top 50, Sulston's IT implementation work and consistent support for the open source way of doing things - he has always maintained that the map of the human genome should remain in public not commercial hands - leave him a firm and influential favourite with the tech community.