[2][3] He has been the Dean of the Royal Air Force College Cranwell, the Chair of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences as well as Director of the Institute for International and Civil Security at Khalifa University,[4] and the Chief Executive of the Cambridge Muslim College in the United Kingdom.

He is also a member of the management board of the Association of British Muslims, which he serves as Director of Leadership and Academic Affairs.

[19] In 1988 Hayward enrolled with the University of Canterbury in Christchurch to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics and History, which he received on 8 May 1991.

[28] Hayward lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2012[29] first teaching strategy and operational art at the Joint Services Command and Staff College.

He is a member of the editorial advisory boards of the academic journals, Air Power Review and Global War Studies.

[33] In 2016, he was named as the “Best Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences” at the Middle East Education Leadership Awards.

[citation needed] Hayward describes himself as "a moderate and politically liberal revert who chose to embrace the faith of Islam because of its powerful spiritual truths, its emphasis on peace and justice, its racial and ethnic inclusiveness and its charitable spirit towards the poor and needy.

[38][39] He is considered to be one of "the world's five hundred most influential Muslims," with his listing in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 editions of The Muslim 500 stating that "he weaves together classical Islamic knowledge and methodologies and the source-critical Western historical method to make innovative yet carefully reasoned sense of complex historical issues that are still important in today's world.".

[47] The report found that Hayward's thesis showed significant industry and no evidence of dishonesty but was "seriously flawed".

[51] Academics, politicians, and community leaders, including Act MP Rodney Hide and Roger Kerr, petitioned to clear Hayward's name and decry University of Canterbury's handling of the thesis issue.

… How else can we explain ordinary German soldiers and paramilitary people murdering six million Jewish civilians in history’s greatest atrocity?”[56][non-primary source needed] In October 2013, Hayward prevailed in a libel case against The Mail on Sunday and The Daily Mail, which had wrongly alleged that Hayward had unfairly favoured Muslim students at the RAF College, and he was awarded a retraction, an apology, and damages described as "substantial.

"[57] Hayward is the author or editor of eighteen non-fiction books, including Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East 1942-1943 (1998 and subsequent editions), an assessment of aerial warfare at the Battle of Stalingrad, and various books on the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic ethics of war.