During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, he worked as a part-time photo-journalist for some of the Left Press in Britain, covering elections in Portugal, Spain, and France for New Socialist, Labour Weekly and Tribune.
From the beginning of the Thatcher years, Hill became more radicalized and opposed what he saw as the increasingly rightward drift in the local and national Labour Party.
Hill contested the 2009 European election for the left-wing electoral alliance, No to EU – Yes to Democracy as lead candidate for the South East Region of England.
He also taught prisoners, adult education tutors, youth workers, and in Thorney Island Refugee Camp for Vietnamese boat people.
[10][11] In his long career he has taught in London's East End, at Tower Hamlets College in 1996–1997, and after that at the University of Northampton in between 1997 and 2010, where he was Professor of Education Policy.
Between 2012 and 2016 he was research professor of education at Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, England, and pays regular visits to Athens, Greece, and Ankara, Turkey.
[13] Affiliated writers and academics sustained Marxist and socialist educational analysis and policy formulation in Britain, through its publications of two books and thirteen booklets, published by Tufnell Press between 1990 and 2002.
[14] It included Caroline Benn Mike Cole, Glenn Rikowski and for the first few years, Gaby Weiner and Stephen Ball.
[17] He has cowritten or co-edited a number of books and articles with Mike Cole, Glenn Rikowski, Peter McLaren, Deb Kelsh, Sheila Macrine, and Kostas Skordoulis and was chair and then Program Chair of the Marxist Analysis of Schools and Society (MASSES) Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association between 2006 and 2010.
[29] Hill lectures worldwide to academic, trade union and activist groups and conferences on the politics of education, and locations of his speaking engagements have included China, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Canada, the US, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia,[30] India and elsewhere.