Prior to his career in Islamic studies, he worked for international oil companies throughout the Middle East.
He then returned to the UK to obtain his PhD at Oxford, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on the Ibadi Imamate of Oman.
[1] In 1969, he finished his PhD thesis titled Arab settlement in Oman: the origins and development of the tribal pattern and its relationship to the Imamate.
[2] Wilkinson then began a prolific career publishing on Ibadi Islam and Omani history.
[1] He is widely regarded as the world's foremost Western expert on Oman's tribes, demonstrated especially in Water and tribal settlement in South-East Arabia.