After leaving Churcher's John went first to Cranwell but left after a year, and then to the University of Edinburgh. Though his undergraduate degree was unexceptional, he returned to study phonetics at postgraduate level, and from then on his academic career took off.
 
He gained first his PhD, then a DLitt from Edinburgh, and was promoted to a Personal Chair as Professor of Phonetics. He was also awarded 4 Honorary degrees, from De Montfort,  Sheffield and Queen Margaret Universities and Trinity College Dublin. Whilst still at Edinburgh he was instrumental in setting up the Centre for Speech Technology Research, and he served for 3 years as Vice-Principal for Research. He moved to Queen Margaret University in 2001 as Research Professor for Speech Sciences and Vice-Principal.
 
A staunch advocate of the economic, social and cultural benefits of the Humanities and of interdisciplinary research, he was the founding Chairman of the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy, and played a key role in making the case for the establishment of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In 1999 he was awarded the CBE for service’s to Phonetics and the Humanities.
 
He retired in 2004.