Prior to becoming a midwife and academic, Dr Pendleton graduated from the University of Nottingham in 1995 with a Joint Honours degree in French and Spanish. He then spent nine years working for BBC Television, becoming a producer and director on a wide variety of documentaries including co-productions with the Open University. After initially working on a high-risk consultant-led unit, he spent the majority of his clinical midwifery career as a community midwife. He joined the University of Northampton as a Lecturer and became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2014. He completed his MSc in Practice Education and was registered as a Midwifery Teacher with the Nursing & Midwifery Council in 2016. In 2019 he was seconded to the NMC Test of Competence Centre as Lead for Academic Development & Quality. He was awarded his PhD in 2024.
In addition to facilitating teaching and learning within the Faculty of Health, Education and Society he is a member of the Faculty Research Ethics Committee. He represents the university in Europe as a member of the Florence Network and has been a visiting lecturer in midwifery and public health at Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. Since 2023 he has held an Honorary Research Fellowship at Coventry University.
