After reading Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester (1972-75) Andrew Taylor undertook postgraduate research and was awarded my PhD from the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield in 1982. The dissertation examined the politics of the Yorkshire Area (NUM) between 1944 and 1974. He was appointed as a lecturer in politics at the then Huddersfield Polytechnic, later the University of Huddersfield, where he was successively senior lecturer, principal lecturer and then professor. Taylor joined the department at Sheffield in January 2000 as Reader and in September 2004 was awarded a personal chair.