[1] He graduated from University of Glasgow with a degree in zoology in 1976 and worked as a computer programmer and wrote a masters thesis on biomechanics.

[4] Married with two children,[1] he lived in South Queensferry near Edinburgh before moving to Gourock, on the Firth of Clyde, in June 2017.

His contemporaries include Neal Asher, Stephen Baxter, Iain M. Banks, Paul J. McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Charles Stross, Richard K. Morgan, and Liz Williams.

His science fiction novels often explore socialist, communist, and anarchist political ideas, especially Trotskyism and anarcho-capitalism (or extreme economic libertarianism).

The Webblies idea formed a central part of the novel For the Win by Cory Doctorow and MacLeod is acknowledged as coining the term.