After his education, Jackson became lecturer in electrical engineering first at the Bradford Technical College until 1929. In the following year he worked as apprentice for the electrical company Metropolitan-Vickers. Jackson lectured at the UMIST from 1930 and subsequently at The Queen's College, Oxford from 1933. He graduated as Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and as Doctor of Science at Manchester in 1936. Afterwards he became again employed at Vickers working as research engineer for the next two years and then obtained a professorship in electrotechnics at his former university. In 1946, he moved to Imperial College London as professor for electrical engineering. Jackson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1953 and joined again Vickers as director of its research and education department, a post he held until 1961. Jackson was knighted in 1958. He served as president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in the following two years until 1960 and after another year became president of the Association of Supervising Electrical Engineers. For four years Jackson chaired the governing body of the Royal Technical Institute, Salford until 1962. He returned to the Imperial College in 1961, heading its Department of Electrical Engineering until his death in 1970; for the last three years he was the College's pro-rector. In 1962 he entered the South Eastern Electricity Board. He gave the 1967 presidential address to the British Association meeting in Leeds. He published a number of books and journal articles on his research.
Political career
In 1944 Jackson was appointed to the Radio Research Board of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in which he sat for four years; he served another term from 1950. He was a member of the Central Advisory Council to the Ministry of Education from 1945 and of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Ministry of Supply from 1947. A year later Jackson was admitted to BBC's Engineering Advisory Committee and in 1951 to the Committee of Selection to the Commonwealth Fund Fellowships. He became a member of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service in 1953. Two years later in 1955 Jackson joined the University Grants Committee, whose membership he held for a decade. In the same year he sat in the Ministry of Education's Council of Technological Awards. Jackson was nominated a chairman of the Ministry's Committee on Supply and Training of Technical Teachers in 1956. He chaired the FBI Research Committee of 1958 and became a member of the Committee on Management of Research, run by the Lord President of the Council. In September 1961, he was invited to the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy and to the Scientific Manpower Committee. Jackson was chosen president of the British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education in 1962 and entered the Advisory Council for Technical Education for Overseas Countries. He received a life peerage with the title Baron Jackson of Burnley, of Burnley, in the County Palatine of Lancaster on 19 January 1967.
In 1938 he married Mary, daughter of Robert Oliphant Boswall, a lecturer in mechanical engineering; they had two daughters. One of Jackson's closest friends was the physicist John F. Allen. In his last years he supported the development of the Indian Institutes of Technology.
