Tim attended the University of Nottingham to study for his MSci degree in Chemistry (2000), after which he went to the University of Liverpool (2000-2003) to study for his PhD, in the research group of Professor Stan Roberts, where his research focused on the synthesis and biological evaluation of cyclopentenone prostanoids.
After his PhD, Tim spent a few months in the fine chemical sector before returning to academia to complete post-doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Jonathan Clayden at the University of Manchester. Afterwards, Tim entered the CoEBio3 (University of Manchester) as a Research Fellow where he spent two years establishing his research group by developing new synthetic methods to biologically important molecules and structural building blocks and applying them to the synthesis of natural products.
In July 2008 Tim was appointed as a Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Central Lancashire where he continued to develop his research, then as a Senior Lecturer, and subsequently as a Principal Lecturer, until moving to De Montfort University in 2020 as an Associate Professor.