King continued at Cambridge as a Rolls-Royce research fellow for 2 years before taking a post as a lecturer at the University of Nottingham from 1980 to 1987. In 1987 she became the first Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellow. She then returned to Cambridge, holding a series of research and teaching positions from 1987 to 1994. In 1994 she moved to Rolls Royce where she held a number of senior positions including Head of Materials, Managing Director of Fan Systems and Engineering Director of the Marine Business. She was appointed chief executive of the Institute of Physics in September 2002. From September 2004 to December 2006 she was Principal of the Engineering Faculty at Imperial College London, after which she joined Aston University as Vice-Chancellor where she served until September 2016 when she was succeeded by Alec Cameron. King was appointed as Chair of STEM Learning Ltd in September 2016.