In 1944, aged 17, he moved to London from Glasgow and began a career in 1946 playing in the Teddy Foster Orchestra at the Lyceum.
[1] McGuffie was a featured artist on regular BBC broadcasts and developed a big public following, which led to a recording contract and he was voted in top place in the Melody Maker readers' poll for three years (1953, 1954 and 1955).
[4] As well as conducting many film scores, McGuffie also wrote several of his own, and is most remembered for his music for the movie Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966), based on the television series Doctor Who and starring Peter Cushing.
He provided the music for The Challenge (1960), The Leather Boys (1964), The Comedy Man (1964), Corruption (1968), the cult horror film The Asphyx (1973), and The Cherry Picker (1974).
He won an Ivor Novello Award in 1960 for his composition "Sweet September",[1] a Song Writers' Guild Badge of Merit in 1980, and started a charity in aid of autistic children called The Niner Club, relating to his lost finger.