Nicholas joined the University of York in 1991. His interests centre on housing exclusion, homelessness and inequalities linked to the built environment. This includes the intersection of multiple disadvantage, inequality and injustice that can be associated with spatial sorting, within a broadly defined interest in social geography. He focuses on interdisciplinary and comparative research, alongside a longstanding interest in impact-focused work with policy makers and practitioners.
He has been a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness, operating under the auspices of FEANTSA, the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless since 2010. He is on the Editorial Boards of the European Journal of Homelessness and the International Journal of Housing Policy.
Nicholas has been Director of the Centre for Housing Policy research group since 2017 and became the University Research Champion for Justice and Equality in 2019. He is also a Senior Fellow in the NIHR SSCR (School for Social Care Research). He has a Chair in Social Policy.