[3] Burns did come through four qualifying rounds to play in the main draw of a ranking event for the first time at the World Open, in Haikou, China.

[3][4] The 2012 Welsh Open saw Burns qualify for his second ranking event, as he defeated Jack Lisowski 4–1 before receiving a walkover due to the withdrawal of Jamie Cope.

[10] In the second ranking event of the season, Burns beat Ryan Causton 5–3, Chen Zhe 5–2, and Matthew Selt 5–2 to qualify for the main stage of the Australian Goldfields Open, held in Bendigo.

[11] In the minor-ranking European Tour events, Burns dropped just two frames in winning four matches to reach the quarter-finals of the Kay Suzanne Memorial Cup, where he was beaten 4–2 by Jamie Jones.

At the Paul Hunter Classic he recorded victories over Ryan Causton, Sanderson Lam, Martin O'Donnell and Thor Chuan Leong to make the quarter-finals, where he was defeated 4–0 by Mark King.

[21] Burns saw off Aditya Mehta 5–1 and John Higgins 5–3 to make his debut at the German Masters and was edged out 5–4 by Michael Holt in the first round.

The final ranking event Burns qualified for this season was the China Open and, after coming through a wildcard round, he whitewashed Peter Ebdon 5–0, before losing 5–3 to Stuart Bingham.

[24] At 66th in the world rankings, Burns would have lost his place on the tour due to not being in the top 64, but he took the final spot on the one-year list to be awarded a two-year card.