Tayler made important contributions to stellar structure and evolution, plasma stability, nucleogenesis and cosmology.
[2] His candidacy citation read "Roger Tayler's versatile career in Astronomy started with pioneering studies in stellar evolution, including his discovery of semi-convection.
At Harwell, his work on plasma stability included a discussion of the stabilised pinch and the prediction of instabilities produced by finite resistivity.
In cosmology, he calculated (with Hoyle) the cosmic helium abundance, stressing the importance of the number of neutrino types, and he pointed out the significance of the neutron half-life.
In nucleosynthesis he calculated the abundances of iron peak elements produced at high temperatures, and recently he has been deeply involved with the chemical evolution of galaxies.