Skinner's research career started in the Cavendish Laboratory where, under the supervision of Charles D Ellis, he worked on the β-ray spectrum of radium B and C. Five years later, in 1927, he moved to the physics department of the University of Bristol, which was headed by Arthur M Tyndall and very well equipped.

Responsible for marked advances in the technique of soft X-ray investigations which have enabled him to show for the first time the details of the fine-structure of the emission bands and the absorption edges.

[5] In 1946, the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) was set up at RAF Harwell, with J D Cockcroft as its first director, although he did not return from Canada until later that year.

The construction of a large cyclotron, a 6 MeV Van de Graaff generator, and the 100 kilowatt GLEEP reactor were all started, but Skinner's most notable contribution was the creation of the General Physics Division.

There, he appears to have developed a relationship with Skinner's 41-year-old Austrian-born wife, Erna”, a woman described by close friend Mary Flowers as someone who “craved the attention of men and usually got it” and who “frequently drank copiously”.

Herbert Skinner died at the Hotel Bernina, Geneva on 20 January 1960, during a visit to the European Organization for Nuclear Research.