Ian Loader graduated with a law degree from the Sheffield University in 1986 and then worked for a year as a law lecturer at Liverpool Polytechnic. He subsequently spent five years in the Faculty of Law at the University of Edinburgh from where he obtained a M.Sc Legal Studies (Criminology) in 1988, and a Ph.D. in 1993. From 1990-1992 he was a lecturer in criminology and jurisprudence in the Faculty. In 1992 he took up a lectureship in the Department of Criminology at Keele University where he remains. He was promoted to a senior lectureship in 1999, and a readership in 2002.