On leaving St. Brendan's Lavers trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School where a fellow student was Pete Postlethwaite.

[3] On leaving drama school he appeared as David Teal in an episode of The Onedin Line (1972) following which he had a season at the Library Theatre in Manchester.

[2][4] For Yorkshire Television Lavers played James Lamert in Dickens of London (1976) and Aspinall in an episode of the BBC drama When the Boat Comes In (1976).

When the acting roles dried up, and needing to support his young family, Lavers took a job in the Youth Training Scheme as a tutor in the theatre course.

[9] While working for Friendly TV in 2003, Lavers inadvertently broadcast a rumour that he believed Nicole Kidman to be gay, after his microphone was left open during a commercial break.

For German TV Lavers appeared in Rosamunde Pilcher: Entscheidung des Herzens (2009), and in 2012 he played the Dame in the pantomime Mother Goose at the Pavilion Theatre in Gorleston alongside his former Anglia television colleague Helen McDermott.

In October 2016 he appeared opposite his wife Érin Geraghty in a production of Bedroom Farce at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage.

Venues visited include Dublin, Derry, Sunderland, Blackpool, Bradford, Wolverhampton, Woking, Milton Keynes, Crawley, Eastbourne, Sheffield and Chester.