[1][3] He then remained to undertake postgraduate research and completed his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1975 with a thesis entitled Economy and society in 8th century northern Tuscany.

[10] On 6 July 2013, Wickham was appointed a company director of the Past and Present Society: he retains this position as of 2019.

More generally Wickham has worked under a modified Marxist framework on how European society changed from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, and has pioneered comparative socio-economic analysis in this period.

It is exceptional for its use of hitherto unincorporated evidence from both documentary and archaeological sources, as well as its bold use of comparative methods and rejection of national narratives.

He has edited Marxist History Writing for the Twenty-First Century, a volume that sees various academics discuss the status and profile of Marxist historiography, and has written a general history of early medieval Europe, published by Penguin, which examines cultural, religious and intellectual developments of the period not covered in his previous socio-economic study.

[11] In 2006, he was awarded the Wolfson History Prize for his book Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400–800.