Dr Buckley completed his degree in Manchester working with Dr Julia Dickinson and Professor Ian J. S. Fairlamb on the synthesis of alpha pyrone mimics and then moved to Loughborough to carry out a PhD with Professor Philip C. B. Page in the area of organocatalytic asymmetric epoxidation. Following this Dr Buckley worked as a PDRA with Professor Philip. C. B. Page for a further year working on the synthesis of N-Heterocyclic carbene ligands with Dr Steven D. R. Christie. In 2004 he was appointed as a university research fellow, working on projects with DSM (Netherlands),  Professor Harry Heaney, Professor Graham Hutchings FRS (Cardiff University), and Professor Frank Marken (Bath University). In September 2007 he was appointed as a Research Councils UK Fellow in Organic Chemistry, to a permanent Lectureship in September 2012 and in March 2014 was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Organic Chemistry. In late summer 2014 Dr Buckley relocated to the University of Utah for a years study leave with Professor Matthew Sigman, whilst maintaining his research group at Loughborough. In July 2015 Ben was invited to take up a Asscociate Editor role with the Royal Society of Chemistry Journal RSC Advances and in September 2017 joined the management board of the EPSRC CO2Chem Grand Challenge Network. In 2020 Ben was promoted to Reader and in February 2024 to Professor of Organic Chemistry.

His research interests lie in organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis, heterogeneous catalysis and the development of novel technologies for applications in carbon dioxide utilisation (CDU). Ben is married to Genna and has two young boys who enjoy creating havoc! and attempt to follow the fortunes of Nottingham Forest.