[2][3] Budd's research focuses on the Cambrian explosion and on the evolution and development, anatomy, and patterns of diversification of the Ecdysozoa, a group of animals that include arthropods.

He obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Cambridge and remained there, in the Department of Earth Sciences, to continue his studies at a doctoral level by investigating the Sirius Passet fossil lagerstätte from the Cambrian of North Greenland.

[1] He finished his doctorate in 1994, with one of the findings being a new species of lobopodian, Kerygmachela.

[4] Budd then moved to Sweden as a postdoc along with his PhD supervisor John Peel.

[1] Together with Sören Jensen he reintroduced the concepts of stem and crown groups to phylogenetics[5] and is a major critic of molecular clocks current usage in determining the origin of animal and plant groups.