A pioneer direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a turbulent boundary layer at $R{e}_{\theta } = 2077{{\unicode{x2013}}}2439$, was performed, on a rough surface and with a zero pressure gradient (ZPG). The boundary layer was subjected to transitional, 24-grit sandpaper surface roughness, with a roughness parameter of ${k}^{+ } \simeq 11$. The computational method involves a synergy of the dynamic multi-scale approach devised by Araya et al. (2011) for prescribing inlet turbulent boundary conditions and a new methodology for mapping high-resolution topographical surface data into a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) environment. It is shown here that the dynamic multi-scale approach can be successfully extended to simulations which incorporate surface roughness. The DNS results demonstrate good agreement with the laser Doppler anemometry (LDA) measurements performed by Brzek et al. (2008) and Schultz & Flack (2003) under similar conditions in terms of mean velocity profiles, Reynolds stresses and flow parameters, such as the skin friction coefficient, boundary and momentum thicknesses. Further, it is demonstrated that the effects of the surface roughness on the Reynolds stresses, at the values of $R{e}_{\theta } = 2077{{\unicode{x2013}}}2439$, are scale-dependent. Roughness effects were mainly manifested up to $y/ \delta \approx 0. 1$. Generally speaking, it was observed that inner peak values of Reynolds stresses increased when considering outer units. However, decreases were seen in inner units. In the outer region, the most significant differences between the present DNS smooth and rough cases were computed in the wall-normal component $\langle {v}^{\prime 2} \rangle $ of the Reynolds stresses and in the Reynolds shear stresses $\langle {u}^{\prime } {v}^{\prime } \rangle $ in outer units. From the resulting flow fields a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis is performed and the effects of the surface roughness are distinctly observed in the most energetic POD modes. The POD analysis shows that the surface roughness causes a redistribution of the kinetic energy amongst the POD modes with energy being shifted from low-order to high-order modes in the rough case versus the smooth case. Also, the roughness causes a marked decrease in the characteristic wavelengths observed in the POD modes, particularly in the streamwise component of the velocity field. Low-order modes of the streamwise component demonstrated characteristic wavelengths of the order of $3\delta $ in the smooth case, whereas the same modes for the rough case demonstrated characteristic wavelengths of only $\delta $.