He read English literature at Oxford University and eventually became a teacher like his parents, although he left after five years so he could pursue full-time writing.

Burt wrote his debut novel, After the Hole, in 1993, a psychological horror story about a group of private school students trapped in an underground bunker, seemingly locked in by a deranged, sociopathic classmate.

He won the Betty Trask Award in 1994 for this work, which was adapted into the film, The Hole (2001), starring Thora Birch and Daniel Brocklebank.

[3] Burt has also written extensively for television, contributing episodes of Afterlife, Diamond Geezer, Ghostboat, Kingdom, Murder in Mind and The Bletchley Circle.

[4] In 2016 he wrote Tutankhamun for ITV [5] and won a Best Writer BAFTA for the children's drama Harriet's Army.