Adrian is a former pupil of St Columb's College, Derry and a graduate of Queen's University, Belfast. He completed his MSc at Southampton (Managing organisational change) and was a Centenary Research Fellow at PRI (Policy Research Institute), where he completed his PhD on public governance. At the PRI, Adrian was involved in a range of research activities leading to a number of important policy reviews, including formative research for the Empowerment Act (2007) as well as evaluation of a range of policy interventions (e.g. race equality legislation in different sectors, community cohesion and equalities in further education). He has taught at the University of Kent and University of Sussex as well as holding research fellowships at the Business Schools of both these institutions. ). He was Visiting Professor of Work Sociology at the Goethe University, Frankfurt (2019-20).

Adrian’s current research interests include time and temporality in organisations; meaningful work; workplace conflict; employee engagement and entrepreneurialism in the informal economy of developing countries. He has previously worked in central government policy. As a Policy Adviser in the Commission for Racial Equality, he led a range of projects centring on community participation. He was also a Policy Manager in the Policy Innovation Unit of the Department for Education & Skills and worked on several inter-department reviews including the "Davies' Review of Entrepreneurship and Education". As a regional research leader for the Home Office in the Action Against Drugs Unit, he coordinated a community-based research programme contributing to the development of national drugs strategy. 

Adrian has previously worked in overseas development, in organisational and institutional capacity building roles; firstly in the Far West of Nepal in a community economic development project and then in national programmatic roles, managing and evaluating livelihoods work across Nepal. He has also held several public appointments, including as an independent adviser to Amicus Horizon Housing (south east England). Adrian is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on Meaningful Work and co-editor of the special issue of Journal of Management Studies on Meaningful Work.