He served spells with PCL, South Bank Polytechnic and other educational institutions before becoming Senior Lecturer and Co-ordinator of Computing at ILEA Paddington College.
He repeated the experience in 1995, before realising that the basic model of the Fringe needed altering in favour of the unknown or non-established artist.
[4][full citation needed] In 1996, he founded the Free Fringe with a single show, Peter Buckley Hill and Some Comedians, at the Footlights and Firkin.
For fourteen years, the Free Fringe was financed personally by Buckley Hill; in 2009, a benefit was held to defray the central expenses.
Also in that year, Buckley Hill's solo Edinburgh show, 40 Words, earned a five-star review from The Scotsman newspaper.