2016 – Present        - Professor of Education at St Mary’s University, London.

                                - Senior Advisor to GEMS International Schools                        

2012 – 2016 Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, Children’s Services and skills

Responsible for Ofsted’s inspection and regulatory work. Sir Michael used the full range of Ofsted’s inspection findings to report on the quality of education, children’s services and skills, locally and nationally. He was responsible to Parliament for the organisation, staffing and management of Ofsted.

Through more demanding inspection frameworks, Sir Michael was pleased, at the end of his tenure, to report that nearly 2 million more children were being educated in Good and Outstanding schools than when he took up his position in 2012.

2007 – 2012  Director of Education, ARK Schools – one of the largest and most successful multi-academy trusts in England

As Director of Education, Sir Michael was responsible for standards in all of the constituent academies within the Trust.

2003 – 2012  Principal of Mossbourne Community Academy, Hackney, London

Opened one of England’s first academies on the site of the infamous Hackney Downs school which was closed in 1995 after a series of very critical inspection reports. In his time at Mossbourne, Sir Michael transformed Britain's worst-performing school into one of the best, with several Outstanding judgements from Ofsted. Sir Michael ensured that significant numbers of young people from modest and poor backgrounds progressed to the best universities in the country, including Oxbridge.

1985 – 2002  Headteacher of St Bonaventure’s RC School, Forest Gate, London

Transformed a large, failing inner-city comprehensive into an Outstanding one, with a national reputation for improving the life-chances of Afro-Caribbean boys.