Professor Buckley completed his degree in Manchester working with Dr Julia Dickinson and Professor Ian J. S. Fairlamb on the synthesis of alpha pyrone mimics and then moved to Loughborough to carry out a PhD with Professor Philip C. B. Page in the area of organocatalytic asymmetric epoxidation sponsored by the EPSRC and Avecia (with Professor John Blacker as Industrial Supervisor). Following this Prof Buckley worked as a PDRA with Professor Philip. C. B. Page for a further year working on the synthesis of N-Heterocyclic carbene ligands with Professor Steven D. R. Christie. In 2004 he was appointed as a university research fellow, working on projects with Professor Philip. C. B. Page and DSM (Netherlands),  Prof. Harry Heaney, Prof. Graham Hutchings FRS (Cardiff University), Prof. Frank Marken (Bath University). In September 2007 he was appointed as a Research Councils UK Fellow, in September 2012 to a permanent Lectureship and in March 2014 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Organic Chemistry. In 2014-15 he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Utah with Professor Matthew S. Sigman's group and appointed Associate Editor of the RSC Advances Journal. In 2017 Ben joined the management board of the EPSRC Grand Challenge Network CO2Chem, in Feb 2020 was promoted to Reader in Organic Chemistry and in 2024 to Professor of Organic Chemistry.