From 1954 to 1958, he studied classics (known as "Greats") at Merton College, Oxford;[2] a fellow student, two years ahead of him, was C. A. R. Hoare.
They shared an interest in logic, which was studied as part of Greats at Oxford.
After his graduation in 1961, Jackson started as computer science designer and consultant for Maxwell Stamp Associates in London.
Here he designed, coded and tested his first programs for IBM and Honeywell computers, working in assembler.
"[3] He contributed to the emerging modular programming movement, meeting Larry Constantine, George H. Mealy and several others on a 1968 symposium.
As a part-time researcher at AT&T Labs Research, in collaboration with Pamela Zave, Jackson created "Distributed Feature Composition",[4] a virtual architecture for specification and implementation of telecommunication services.
In 1961, Jackson married Judith Wendy Blackburn;[2] they have four sons, one of whom, Daniel, is also a computer scientist based at MIT.