Saiful returned to the UK in 1990 to become a lecturer, then reader, at the University of Surrey. In January 2006 he was appointed professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Bath. His group applies computational methods combined with structural techniques to study fundamental atomistic properties such as ion conduction, defect chemistry and surface structures. In January 2022, he joined the Department of Materials, University of Oxford as a professor of materials modelling.
Saiful has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Materials Chemistry, and sits on the advisory board of the RSC journal Energy and Environmental Science. He is Principal Investigator of the Faraday Institutions CATMAT' project on Next-generation Lithium-Ion Cathode Materials.