Burden originally had his eyes set on making a career as a professional footballer, but a badly broken leg curtailed this ambition.

On 25 November 2009 he won the IBSF World Snooker Championship in Hyderabad, India, beating Brazilian Igor Figueiredo 10–8 in the final.

In the Second Event he beat Andrew Higginson, James Wattana, Barry Hawkins, Robert Milkins and Ryan Day to reach the semi-finals.

[4] In the European Tour Event 3 played in Antwerp, Belgium, Burden beat Gareth Allen, Joe Swail and Mark King, before losing 3–4 to Neil Robertson in the last 16.

[5] In the Finals, Burden beat world number one Judd Trump 4–3, clinching the match with a 116 break to reach the last 16, the joint furthest he has ever been in a ranking event and the first since 2000.

[14] Burden defeated Michael Georgiou 5–3 in the first round, closing the match with a 112 break, but fell short of reaching the first ranking event quarter-final of his career as Ryan Day knocked him out 5–2.

[16][17] Burden reached the first ranking event quarter-final of his career in the 2016 China Open courtesy of victories over Robbie Williams, Joe Perry, Rhys Clark and Rory McLeod, where he lost 5–1 to Stephen Maguire.

[19] Burden edged out Ryan Day 4–3 to qualify for the 2016 European Masters and then beat Yu Delu 4–1 and Ricky Walden 4–3 to play in his second career ranking event quarter-final, where he lost 4–0 to Mark Selby.

Burden lost out to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 10–8 in the final round of qualifying and thus failed to emulate his achievement of 1998 in reaching the last 32 and a place at snooker's biggest stage, the Crucible Theatre.