Roger has worked in UK higher education since 1985. He has worked at Surrey, Teesside, York (for many years), Goldsmiths (where he was Pro-Warden for Interdisciplinary Development) and, most recently, Newcastle (where he was a Professor of Cities). At Bristol, he is working part-time (mostly in TB2) and spends part of each year in Melbourne, Australia where he holds a Hon Prof Fellowship in the Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne.

He is committed to interdisciplinary working across the arts, humanities and the social sciences and also has a keen interest in creative and social technologies. About one-half of his published outputs have been in the field of housing and urban studies with the rest being variously concerned with: social inequalities; digital cultures; health; the social life of methods; the sociology of higher education; and various other topics. He is the author or co-author of some 160 articles, chapters, books and reports.

Between 2002-2005 he was the co-editor of Housing Studies. Between 2005-2007 he led the UK ESRC E-Society Programme. He is currently on the editorial boards of both Body & Society and Theory, Culture & Society. He was an output assessor for the Social Policy and Social Work Unit of Assessment in the 2014 UK REF and was an interdisciplinary assessor in REF 2021. He has supervised 19 PhD students to successful completion and is keen to supervise more

He has, most recently, published on the social geography and cultural politics of the superrich in London and the history of geodemographic technologies. He is currently working on a study of algorithmic risk profiling technologies in housing markets and the use of app-based fintech by young people.