Hey spent thirty years as an academic at University of Southampton, starting in 1970 as a particle physicist and "doing research on UNIX with tools like LaTeX." Open and Shut?: A Conversation with Microsoft's Tony Hey He switched to computer science after fifteen years. While there, he served as Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science and Dean of Engineering and Applied Science. He holds an undergraduate degree in physics and a doctorate in theoretical physics, both from Oxford University.

Hey is the editor of the journal Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience. Among other scientific advisory boards in Europe and the United States, he is a member of the Global Grid Forum Advisory Committee.

Hey was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the British Computer Society, the Institute of Physics and the Institution of Electrical Engineers and was a Harkness Fellow[1].