Brian Jarman was the Head of the Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice and Head of the Division of Primary Care and Populations Health Sciences, Imperial College School of Medicine until October 1998 and remains within the Department in an Emeritus capacity.

He was President of the British Medical Association (from June 2003 until June 2004), and is part-time Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston, USA, and Head of the Dr Foster Unit at Imperial College.

Professor Jarman read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, followed by a PhD in Geophysics at Imperial College, and then worked for Shell Oil Company as an exploration geophysicist in the Sahara and elsewhere.