Spencer was educated at
Sherborne School and
Lincoln College, Oxford. He was for six years the ''Telegraph's
Beijing correspondent and was the first Western journalist to reach Yingxiu after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in which 80% of the town had been destroyed. He then moved to Dubai to become one of their Middle East correspondents. He moved to Cairo in the wake of the Arab Spring for ease of coverage. He left The Telegraph
in August 2016. He joined The Times'' in 2016 and is based in Beirut. He was nominated for Foreign Reporter of the Year in the
National Press Awards for 2018. Spencer is married to writer and poet, Dr Helen Wing; they have three children. == References ==