During World War II, Joseph served as a captain in the Royal Artillery, and suffered a minor wound during German shelling of his company's headquarters in Italy, as well as being mentioned in dispatches.

In 1945, Joseph joined the leadership of the Post-War Orphans’ Committee of the Central British Fund for German Jewry (now World Jewish Relief).

In the run-up to the 1970 election Joseph made a series of speeches under the title "civilised capitalism", in which he outlined his political philosophy and hinted of cuts in public spending.

After the Conservatives won the election, Joseph was made Secretary of State for Social Services, which put him in charge of the largest bureaucracy of any government department but kept him out of control of economics.

Whilst the State Pension would have survived the reforms, Joseph instead planned for workers to contribute towards occupational schemes provided by employers (similar to Australian Superannuation).

A ‘State Reserve’ scheme would have been set up for low-earners and the self-employed, but critically without any prior funding, meaning a worker would only reach the maximum entitlement in 2019.

Many on the right wing of the Conservative Party looked to Joseph to challenge Heath for the leadership, but his chances declined following a controversial speech on 19 October 1974.

It covered a variety of socially-conservative topics and drew on an article that had been written by Arthur Wynn and his wife and published by the Child Poverty Action Group.

[13]The outrage, despite his repeated apologies, in reaction to his speech sharply undercut Joseph's campaign to replace Heath as party leader.

)[19]This remark expressed Joseph's sense of failure during multiple Conservative governments that had automatically followed the post-war consensus of a welfare state with strong labour unions.

As he had done a great deal to promote Thatcher, when she won the leadership in 1975, she determined to put him in a position that would facilitate a profound influence on Conservative Party policy.

He had a large impact on the Conservative manifesto for the 1979 election, but frequently, a compromise had to be reached with Heath's more moderate supporters, such as Jim Prior.

As Thatcher's Secretary of State for Education from 1981 he started the ball rolling for GCSEs, and the establishment of a national curriculum in England and Wales.

His attempts to reform teachers' pay and bring in new contracts were opposed by the trade unions and led to a series of one-day strikes.

In 1984, his public spending negotiations with his Treasury colleagues resulted in a proposed plan for extra research funding for universities financed through the curtailment of financial support to students who were dependent children of more affluent parents.

The compromise involved the abandonment of Joseph's plan to levy tuition fees but preserved his aspiration to abolish the minimum grant.

It advocated an appraisal system to assess the relative quality of research and foresaw a retrenchment in the size of the higher education sector.

[22] He received a life peerage in the dissolution honours, being created Baron Joseph, of Portsoken in the City of London on 12 October 1987.

[24] At the end of 2011, the release of confidential documents under the UK Government's 30-year rule revealed Joseph's thoughts regarding the Liverpool riots.

[citation needed] The Sir Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture is held annually by the Centre for Policy Studies.