Tom studied archaeology at the University of Reading, graduating in 2014. Whilst at university he excavated at Silchester, a Roman town and home to the Reading archaeological field school. He also excavated at several Neolithic sites in Iraqi Kurdistan with the Central Zagros Archaeological Project, a research project that looks at animal husbandry and sedentism in the early Neolithic. This was also an area of interest for his dissertation as he specialised in Zooarchaeology, specifically bird remains from the sites in Kurdistan. After leaving University he found work with Cotswold Archaeology working on several rural Roman and Iron Age sites as well as an urban site in Gloucester involving the Roman Ramparts.