After the war, Corder worked for the British Council in Austria, Turkey, Jamaica and Colombia. During this time he taught classes, worked on syllabus design, and prepared new language-teaching materials. In 1957 Corder joined the school of applied linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. However, he still worked for the British Council at the same time. The British Council needed specialists in applied linguistics because it was expanding language teaching programs around the world. Corder studied for the diploma in applied linguistics to help the Council. He taught at Edinburgh University for over twenty years until he retired in 1983.