[1] After graduation, Jones worked for 20 years at Edge & Ellison, a firm of lawyers based in Birmingham, culminating in serving as Senior Partner from 1995 to 1998.

Jones was a non-executive director for the IT contractor iSOFT from 2000 until his resignation in July 2005, when he stayed on for one year as an adviser.

[citation needed] Jones served as the unpaid UK Skills Envoy from 2006 to 2007, before taking up the role of Minister of State for Trade 29 June 2007.

The post was situated in both the newly created Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

He was gazetted as a peer on 10 July 2007 as Baron Jones of Birmingham, of Alvechurch and of Bromsgrove in the County of Worcestershire,[4] and took his seat in the House of Lords that same day.

[8] In testimony to the Public Administration Committee he said that his time as a junior minister was "one of the most dehumanising and depersonalising experiences" anyone could have and that he had been amazed by how many civil servants he thought deserved the sack.

[9] He was, however, positive about the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in the October 2008 reshuffle.

In response to any rumour regarding a possible defection, Jones stated: "I don't do party politics" and "business is my constituency.

"[14] In July 2016, shortly after the Brexit referendum, Jones argued that the process of exiting the European Union would have minimal impact on the economy and employment, stating: "There's not going to be any economic pain.

"[15] According to The New European, he later contradicted this statement, declaring in January 2019 that he had "made it very clear in every speech I gave we would be economically worse off.