After graduating from the University of Sheffield with a Genetics Honours degree he went to undertake a PhD in Evolutionary Developmental Biology as a joint venture between the Universities of Newcastle and Sunderland.  Having fallen in love with the Northeast Chris stayed in Newcastle and began his NHS career as a Clinical Cytogeneticist in 2001 and became a Diplomat of the Royal College of Pathologists as well as a Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Science. He moved into Quality Management in 2013, becoming an Assessment Manager for the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) in 2018, before returning to the NHS in 2020 to undertake his current position. Chris continues to be a UKAS technical assessor for healthcare.