 He passed the 11+ exam and earned a scholarship to attend St. Edward's College, Liverpool a direct grant grammar school.He credits these institutions as providing scaffolding for ascent out of an impoverished background.He began working (including a job stacking shelves at Tesco) and went on to study at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) where he gained his BSc (Hons) in Management Sciences and graduated in 1977.