Gregor grew up in Castlemilk, Glasgow, completing his secondary school years in Brixton, London. Following a Philosophy/Literature degree at U Bristol (1971-74) his MA & PhD were taken at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, U Birmingham, led by Stuart Hall. Through the 1980s, Gregor continued to work closely with Hall in helping to produce Open University mega-courses in the areas of crime; the state; modernity; and social philosophy, also overseeing the local tutoring of OU social science courses throughout Scotland. In 1991, he moved to Aotearoa/New Zealand as Professor of Sociology at Massey University, returning to U Bristol in 1998 as Established Chair in Sociology. Gregor's leadership roles at UoB have included: Head of Sociology; Head of the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies; Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies; Warden of Goldney Hall. He is a Trustee of the Stuart Hall Foundation.

Published books:

Marxism and The Methodologies Of History (1981)
Marxism, Pluralism & Beyond: Classic Debates and New Departures (1989)
Pluralism (1995)
Exploring Society: An Introductory Sociology for New Zealand Students (4 editions: 2000, 2004, 2010, 2019, with A. Ryan, P.Spoonley, R. McManus, S. Matthewman, C. Brickell).
Sociological Cultural Studies: Reflexivity and Positivity in the Human Sciences (2006)
Story of Sociology (2011)

Edited (with Introduction and Commentaries): Stuart Hall, Selected Writings on Marxism (2021)

Co-Edited: 
On Ideology (1978)
Making Histories (1982)
Crime and Society: Readings in History and Theory (1982)
State and Society in Contemporary Britain (1984)
The Idea of the Modern State (1984)