Kerry Hinton received an Honours Bachelor of Engineering in 1978, an Honours Bachelor of Science in 1980 and Master of Science Degree in Mathematical Sciences in 1982, all from the University of Adelaide. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, U.K., and the Diploma in Industrial Relations from the Newcastle Upon Tyne Polytechnic, U.K., in 1984.

In 1984 Dr Hinton joined Telstra Research Laboratories (TRL), Victoria, Australia, where he worked on analytical and numerical modelling of optical systems and components. His work focused optical communications devices and architectures, physical layer issues for Automatically Switched Optical Networks (ASONs) and monitoring in all-optical networks. Dr Hinton was also a laser safety expert within Telstra.

In 2006, Dr Hinton commenced as a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Ultra Broadband Information Networks (Cubin), located at the University of Melbourne, Australia. In 2011 Dr Hinton joined the Centre for Energy Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) as a Principal Research Fellow researching the energy efficiency of the Internet, communications technologies and networks.

CEET is was an industrial research centre funded by Alcatel-Lucent, the Victorian State Government and the University of Melbourne and was a world leader in researching energy efficiency in telecommunications. CEET was a founding member of the international GreenTouch consortium which developed a technology roadmap to improve the energy efficiency of the Internet by a factor of 1000 over the decade 2010 to 2020.

In 2013 Dr Hinton took on the role of Director of the CEET and continued in that role until July 2016 when CEET closed. Dr Hinton has authored over 130 papers all in peer reviewed journals and conferences.

Dr Hinton is now an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and continues to undertake research in that capacity.