Sarah Sands trained on The Sevenoaks Courier as a news reporter, before moving to the Evening Standard – initially as Editor of the Londoner’s Diary – and took further posts as Features Editor and Associate Editor. She joined the Daily Telegraph in 1996 as Deputy Editor to assume responsibility later for the Saturday edition.

She was appointed the first female Editor of The Sunday Telegraph in 2005. In 2006 she worked as Consultant Editor on the Daily Mail and in 2008, she became Editor-in-Chief of the UK edition of Reader’s Digest.  She was appointed Deputy Editor of the London Evening Standard in 2009 and became its Editor from 2012-2017. Sarah was the Editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme from 2017 – 2020.

Sands is the Deputy Chair of the British Council, was Chair of the Gender Equality Advisory Council for G7 for 2021 and 2022. She is a Trustee of the Science Museum, Partner at Hawthorn Advisors and board member of Channel 4 and the Berkeley Group. She is an ambassador for Global Partnership for Education, an Associate at the IWM and former Trustee of Index on Censorship.

She has written four novels: her most recent books are The Hedgehog Diaries and The Interior Silence: 10 Lessons from Monastic Life.

The 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction judges