 From October 1985, Kingman was elected Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol.He remained in Bristol until 2001 when he took up his post at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge.Shortly after making that move, Kingman drew some media attention for having the third-highest salary among British Vice-Chancellors and this having nearly doubled in his final year in the job, at a time when most academics received pay-rises of about 3%.