Before coming to Northumbria Ian jointly owned a print business in the City of London. He is now a Professor of Employment Relations at Newcastle Business School. His research focuses on employment relations and the exploitation of migrant workers, with a particular focus on Polish migrant workers. He has undertaken research funded by a variety of funders including the European Commission, UK local, regional and national Governments, the ESRC, the British Academy and a number of practitioners, including the TUC. He has also led on anti-racist and modern slavery practitioners training of Northumbria Staff and members of external business at Northumbria. Finally, he was one of four experts providing wage level information with regard to blacklisted workers.

Ian is currently Unit of Assessment and Impact lead for Newcastle Business School.

(1) Industrial relations, recently in the engineering construction industry and UK and European regulation; (2) Migration and in particular Polish workers and UK communities and recently refugees; (3) Blacklisting in the construction industry.