Davies completed his undergraduate studies and doctorate at the University of Oxford; his DPhil was awarded in 1994 for his thesis "The tailors of London and their guild, c. 1300–1500". He worked for the History of Parliament Trust as a researcher and completed studies of parliamentary representation in 15th-century London and Southwark, before being appointed Director of the Centre for Metropolitan History at the University of London's Institute of Historical Research in 2002. He remained in that post until 2016, when he was appointed Executive Dean of the School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London ; he is also a professor of urban history in the School. Prior to his appointment at Birkbeck, he had also been Pro-Dean at the School of Advanced Study where he was also Professor of Urban History.
London and Beyond: Essays in Honour of Derek Keene.
"'Monuments of Honour': Clerks, Histories and Heroes in the London livery companies", in Hannes Kleineke, Fifteenth Century X:Parliament, Personalities and Power. Papers Presented to Linda S. Clark, pp. 145–165.
London and the Kingdom: Essays in Honour of Caroline M. Barron, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, no. 16.
People in Place: Families, Households and Housing in Early Modern London
"Lobbying Parliament: the London livery companies in the fifteenth century", Parliamentary History, vol. 23, pp. 136–148.
"Ellen Langwith, silkwoman of London", The Ricardian, vol. 13, pp. 39–47.
"Governors and Governed: the Practice of Power in the Merchant Taylors' Company", in I. A. Gadd and P. Wallis, Guilds, Society and Economy in London, 1450–1800, pp. 67–83.
The Merchant Taylors' Company of London: Court Minutes 1486–1493.
"Artisans, Guilds and Government in London" in R. H. Britnell, Daily Life in the Late Middle Ages, pp. 125–150.
"The Tailors of London: Corporate Charity in the Late-Medieval Town" in Rowena E. Archer, Crown, Government and People in the Fifteenth Century, pp. 161–190.
"Dame Thomasine Percyvale, 'the Maid of Week' ", in Caroline M. Barron and Anne F. Sutton, Medieval London Widows 1300–1500, pp. 185–208.
Since 2016, Davies has been director of a Heritage-Lottery-funded project, "The Layers of London: mapping the city's heritage", based at the Institute of Historical Research. From 2010 to 2016, he was director of the "Records of London's Livery Companies Online" project, and with Vanessa Harding and Richard Smith, he received a Major Grant from Economic and Social Research Council for a project entitled "Life in the Suburbs: Health, Domesticity and Status in Early Modern London", which ran from 2008 to 2011.
