Edward Acton was born and brought up in Zimbabwe, studied history at the University of York and took his doctorate at Cambridge. He worked at the Bank of England before taking up a lectureship at Liverpool and, later, a Senior Lectureship at Manchester. In 1991 he was appointed to the Chair of Modern European History at the University of East Anglia specialising in modern Russian and Soviet history. In 2009 he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of UEA.

He is active in a range of national HE bodies and leads for UUK on international student visa issues. His Board memberships include the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Trust.