John began his career in science designing and deploying systems for earthquake and volcano monitoring and in 1980 he was one of the three founder members of R B Hawkins and Associates. As a consultant to the UK importers of a European car manufacturer for several years, he undertook a wide range of automotive safety and quality investigations working closely with their design engineers, service support engineers and with Government safety authorities.

John works mainly on the application of physics to engineering problems. This has led him to investigate incidents including three tower crane collapses, aircraft system malfunctions and industrial power transmission failures. He has undertaken Hawkins' highest pressure investigation (of underwater transducer failures in the oil industry) and the lowest pressure investigation (a communications satellite high-vacuum test chamber).

John started Hawkins' now well renowned road traffic accident investigation service in the early 1980s. This remains a major part of his work and it has grown to the extent that Hawkins has the largest wholly private-sector group of road accident analysis scientists and engineers in the United Kingdom.

He has over 25 years experience in preparing reports for litigation and has appeared as an expert witness in all types of Civil and Criminal Courts in England and Scotland (and the Cayman Islands and Jersey) as well as in confidential arbitration and mediation. Cases have included a number of lengthy commercial proceedings between international companies.