During 1834 Phillips was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. During later years he received honorary degrees of LL.D. from Dublin and Cambridge, and D.C.L. from Oxford; while during 1845 he was awarded the Wollaston Medal by the Geological Society of London. During 1840 he resigned his charge of the York museum and was appointed to the staff of the geological survey of Great Britain managed by Henry De la Beche. Phillips spent some time studying the Palaeozoic fossils of Devon, Cornwall and West Somerset, of which he published a descriptive memoir (in 1841). During that same year, he published the first global geologic time scale, which ordered rock strata according to the types of fossils found within. This helped standardize the usage of the terms Paleozoic period, which he extended to a longer period than it had had by previous usage, and Mesozoic period, the latter being his own invention. He also made a detailed survey of the region of the Malvern Hills, of which he prepared the elaborate account that appears in vol. ii. of the Memoirs of the Survey (1848). During 1844 he became professor of geology for the University of Dublin.