After reading Biology at Oxford, Jeremy taught at secondary level for four years and then worked as a priest in a Cardiff parish. He then set up the Secondary Housing Association for Wales (SHAW) which created ten new Housing Associations in Wales and at one stage was developing a fifth of all new social Housing in Wales. Shaw was asked by the NHS to develop and then to manage a small specialist care home. Other NHS orders followed and Shaw won many tenders to develop and operate care homes and hospitals for Councils and the NHS. In 2006 he led the management buy-out of the business and its conversion into a staff owned company. The buy-out price became the £15 million cash endowment of a separate charity which gives grants and loans for health and care purposes.