[1] Taylor was commissioned into the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards in December 1948, who were based at Sabratha in Libya.

[1] In 1967 he moved to Germany to command his regiment; two years later, now a full colonel, he returned to the Staff College.

[3][1] In 1975 he attended the Royal College of Defence Studies in London before becoming deputy director of military operations at the Ministry of Defence in January 1976 and commander of British Forces Cyprus and Administrator of the Sovereign Base Areas in May 1978.

[6] Taylor left the Army in 1984 and became director of the Middle East Training Centre in Nicosia, Cyprus before returning to Somerset, England, in 1987, where he bought a farm.

[1] Taylor then became involved as a consultant in the concrete industry and later spent time in the Middle East involved in a technology transfer programme for concrete batching plants as part of the Al-Yamamah arms deal.