He attended Portway Community School in Shirehampton, a state comprehensive, and has spoken about his experiences of growing up in poverty.

[4] Jones studied human bioscience at the University of Plymouth, where he was subsequently elected President of the Students' Union.

[6] In Bristol, he started a mentoring programme seeking to bring young people from his old school into the legal profession.

[11] At the 2015 general election, Jones stood in Bristol North West, coming second with 34.4% of the vote behind the incumbent Conservative MP Charlotte Leslie.

[19] Following Keir Starmer's election as Labour leader in April 2020, Jones was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary jointly to Shadow Justice Secretary David Lammy and Shadow Attorney General Charlie Falconer,[20] and served until his election as Chair of the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee.

[23] He led on a number of issues including the withholding of redundancy payments from AstraZeneca workers,[24] the campaign to increase miners' pensions through the Mineworkers Pension Scheme,[25] and the British Post Office scandal,[26] the right for workers to join a trade union at Amazon[27] and the dispute related to changes at Royal Mail.

[30] He has also led Parliamentary inquiries into the decarbonisation of heating,[31] electricity[32][33] and industry,[34] as well as reform of the energy market in the United Kingdom.

[46] He has been described as one of the Labour Party's strongest communicators and became one of the most recognisable faces of the shadow cabinet during the 2024 general election campaign.

[60] Jones told his constituents in November 2024 that he would not support the assisted dying legislation being brought to Parliament by his Labour colleague Kim Leadbeater.

[61] Jones is married to net zero consultant and technology entrepreneur Lucy Symons-Jones, who co-founded the renewable energy company Village Infrastructure.