Miguel was born in London and attended Aylestone Comprehensive (now Queens Park Community School). He then studied for a BA (Hons.) in Economics and Government and then a SSRC competitive sponsored MA in Latin American Government and Politics at Essex University (1979-1983). He was a Researcher located in the Universidad Autonoma de Madrids Sociology Department (1983-84) financed by a British Council/Spanish Ministry of Education Scholarship and later a Vicente Cañada Blanch Foundation/University of London Fellowship (1986-87). He completed his PhD in Industrial Relations in 1988 with an ESRC scholarship (1984-86) at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. He has worked at Cardiff University, Keele University, Leeds University, Durham University and Bradford University as well as having been employed in local government during the 1980s.

The main focus of his research during the past thirty years as an academic has been concerned with the changing patterns of rights and regulation within labour & employment relations and human resource management. Much of this work has a comparative and international perspective. The work deals with the position and role of regulation and institutions (public and private) in the context of globalisation, increasing managerialism, and socio-economic uncertainty.

In the first instance, he has researched on the changing identity and structures of industrial relations and human resource management: the impact of new forms of management and workplace organisation on workers and trade unions in terms of individualisation and fragmentation, the emergence of new frameworks of firm level regulation such as social partnership and market facing representation, the impact of organisational practices such as quality management and teamworking on worker politics, and the general globalisation of industrial relations and human resource management in a range of sectors such as automobiles, financial services, food manufacturing, postal services, chemicals, and airlines  - and how they challenge traditional forms of regulation and representation.

Miguel has taught a range of modules over the past thirty years: Human Resource Management (both National and International), Employment and Industrial Relations, Public Policy and Management, European Public Policy, Research Methods, Management Theory/Business Environment, and the Sociology of Work. He has supervised a range of doctorial students and has taught on doctoral and masters programmes in the UK (e.g. Ruskin College) and in Spain (e.g. the University Autonoma of Madrid, University of Zaragoza, University of Seville, the University of Valencia and the University of Oviedo). He is currently teaching Human Resource Management (Context and Organisation), Research Process at the PGR level, and Trends in Global Business and Management at the Posgraduate level. He was the co-ordinator and a co-founder of the Fairness at Work Research Centre (FairWRC) and an active member of the European Work and Employment Research Centre (EWERC) within Manchester University: he was part of the team that merged these into the current Work & Equalities Institute (WEI) and has been a co-director.

In addition, he has been on a range of editorial boards and committees such as the International Journal of HRM, Work, Employment and Society, and Capital and Class (where he was lead lead coordinator twice).  He is currently on the editorial board of the European Journal of Industrial Relations, Labor and Society, Cuadernos de Relaciones Laborales, Revista Accion e Investigacion Social, and Critical Perspectives in International Business. Since 2018 he has been a joint editor of New Technology, Work and Employment. He has been an advisor and evaluator for various bodies such as trade unions (e.g. UNISON, UNITE, the CWU, UCATT, the TUC nationally and regionally, and the ETUC) and public bodies (e.g. BIS, ACAS, EC, and various local government organisations such as Manchester and Leeds).  He is a founder member of Critical Labour Studies and a member of the trade unions UNITE and the UCU. He is a Fellow of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association and a Co-Researcher of the University of Montreal Interuniversity Reseach Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT).