Walters studied statistics at University College Leicester and then went to Nuffield College, Oxford, where he took an MA in economics. On leaving Nuffield in 1951, he took up a post to teach statistics at Birmingham University, later becoming professor of econometrics and statistics there in the early 1960s. He was one of the first British economists to argue that money was "of considerable importance" to economic activity, a view that became more widespread during "the Great Inflation" of the 1970s. He argued forcefully that Britain should maintain strict monetary targets, and that the money supply should not be manipulated for political reasons.