[2]: 4  Land was educated at Willesden County Grammar School from 1943 to 1947 and after graduating in Economics from the LSE in 1950, he joined the London food and catering enterprise J. Lyons, working on the first electronic computer designed for business use, the LEO I with his colleague Mary Coombs.

At the LSE he set up the ADMIS (Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems) Masters course and developed a Ph.D. program.

Land retired from full-time academic work in 1992 and is currently Visiting Professor of Information Management at the LSE and at Leeds Metropolitan University.

[4] In 2003, Land was jointly selected for the AIS LEO Award with Jack F. Rockart of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for lifetime exceptional achievement.

[5] Land was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to the information systems industry.