[6] Howard joined forces with two old UCS friends, Alan Blaikley and Paul Overy, and between 1962 and 1963 they ran and edited four issues of a magazine, Axle Quarterly, publishing early work by Melvyn Bragg, Ray Gosling, Alexis Lykiard, Gillian Freeman and Simon Raven amongst others.

These included Peter Graham's The Abortive Renaissance,[9] a critical examination of British New Wave cinema; John Gale's Sex – Is it Easy?,[10] on the emergence of the permissive society; Gavin Millar's Pop!

In the 1960s and 1970s, in collaboration with Alan Blaikley, Ken Howard composed the music and words for many international top 10 hits,[14][15][16] including two UK number ones, "Have I the Right?"

[18][19][20] Among other performers for whom they wrote were The Herd, Petula Clark, Phil Collins, Sacha Distel, Rolf Harris, Frankie Howerd (the theme song for his film Up Pompeii), Engelbert Humperdinck, Horst Jankowski, Eartha Kitt, Little Eva, Lulu and Matthews Southern Comfort.

[21] Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley were the first British composers to write for Elvis Presley, including the hit "I've Lost You" (1970),[22] which he later performed in the film That's The Way It Is.

[24][25] Howard and Blaikley's concept album, Ark 2 (1969), performed by Flaming Youth,[26] drew the comment that Blaikley and Howard "have a wit, gaiety, dignity and melodic flair reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein...which suggest that pop is becoming the serious music – in the proper sense – of the age"[27] Howard and Blaikley were responsible for theme and incidental music for several television drama series including The Flame Trees of Thika (1981) and By the Sword Divided (1983–1985),[28] both subsequently aired in the US on Alistair Cooke’s Masterpiece Theatre, and the BBC's long-running series of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple (1984–1992).

These have included (for the BBC) A Penny for Your Dreams, John Lennon – A Journey in the Life, The Miracle of Intervale Avenue, Open Mind, Mr Abbott's Broadway and Sunny Stories; (for ITV) South Bank Show profiles of the New World Symphony Orchestra, Danny Kaye, Frank Sinatra, Hakan Hardenberger, Johnnie Ray and Maxim Vengerov, EK-OK, and Will Apples Grow on Mars?.