Michael A. Robson joined British Rail in 1971 as a Booking Clerk at Gidea Park before taking on various clerical roles, including working in Temple Mills marshalling yard. He was then appointed as a Relief Traffic Manager based at Colchester. He then moved to Scotland as the Assistant Area Manager at Kirkcaldy, Freight Manager for Fife, and Freight Manager at Motherwell. He then moved to the Liverpool Street Division as a Divisional Movements Planning Assistant. He then moved into area management roles including Area Operations Manager at King's Cross, Area Manager for London, Tilbury and Southend, Area Manager at Liverpool Street and Area Manager at Ashford. He then became the Commercial Manager on the South Eastern Division of Network SouthEast before moving to Railtrack at privatisation, holding various positions in the Operational Planning Team including National Engineering Planning Manager. He was then appointed as the Head of European Affairs before being seconded as the Secretary General of the European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM) in Brussels. In 2010 he went into railway consultancy.