Pattison was Dean of the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge (1991–2001), and then an associate professor at the University of Århus (2002–03).
In 2004, Pattison succeeded John Webster[1] as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.
In 2017, Pattison gave the Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford; the series was titled "A Phenomenology of the Devout Life".
[5] Pattison's works range from historical, theological and philosophical engagement with the critical reception of German Idealism in such figures as Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger and Fyodor Dostoyevsky to theological studies of the aesthetics of film and the visual arts.
His latest work has used existential phenomenology to explore themes of ontology, language, love and the meaning of God.