John Cairns graduated MA(Hons) in Economic Science from the University of Aberdeen. After a year of graduate study at the University of York he spent two years as a research fellow in the Institute for Social and Economic Research. This was followed by a return to the University of Aberdeen where he spent eleven years as a lecturer in the Department of Economics. In 1989 he took up a post as senior research fellow in the Health Economics Research Unit and was appointed director in 1993. He was awarded a personal chair in 2002. He took up his current post in May 2004. He was a member of the NICE technology appraisal committee 2003-2020. He joined the NICE diagnostics advisory committee in 2020.