Burns was appointed a
lecturer in history at King's College London in 1992. He was promoted to
senior lecturer in 2002 and to Professor of Modern British History in 2005. He was head of the Department of History from 2004 to 2008 and Vice-Dean for Education, Faculty of Arts and Humanities from 2014 to 2017. Burns specialised in the history of English religion since the mid-eighteenth century, and particularly the history of the
Church of England. Burns co-founded and co-edited the
Boydell and Brewer monograph series
Studies in Modern British Religious History. He was a fellow of the
Royal Historical Society, and from 2012 to 2016 was its Vice President (Education), overseeing policy on the teaching of History in both schools and universities; he previously served as one of its Literary Directors. In 2015 he was awarded an honorary fellowship of the
Historical Association, in 2016 he was appointed President of the Church of England Record Society, and in 2017 he was appointed academic director of the Georgian Papers Programme at King's. ==Death==