Stuart has worked for international awarding bodies for over 20 years. From 2007 to 2021, he was Head of Research at Cambridge Assessment International Education. Stuart is particularly interested in demonstrating how educational and psychological tests seek to meet the demands of validity, reliability and fairness. Stuart has a wide range of publications in English second language assessment and educational research journals. His assessment books include: Examining Writing: Research and practice in assessing second language writing (Shaw & Weir, 2007); The IELTS Writing Assessment Revision Project: towards a revised rating scale (Shaw & Falvey, 2008); Validity in Educational and Psychological Assessment (Newton & Shaw, 2014); and Language Rich: Insights from Multilingual Schools (Shaw, Imam & Hughes, 2015). His most recent book is entitled ‘Is Assessment Fair?’ (Isabel Nisbet & Stuart Shaw) published by Sage (2020). Stuart is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA) and a Fellow of the Association for Educational Assessment in Europe (AEA-Europe). He is also an affiliated lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.

Stuart is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA) and Chair of the IAEA Communications Committee.