Served two years in Royal Air Force as a typist

Professional debut as comedian's understudy in a revue

Worked intermittently as a teacher

Was a performer and director with a repertory company in Birmingham

Joined BBC as trainee TV director

First TV series directing experience, "Z-Cars", for the BBC

Directed an assortment of stage productions

First film for television, "Up the Junction" directed with Tony Garnett

Won widespread attention for the documentary-like TV drama "Cathy Come Home"

Directed film, "Kes", in first collaboration with writer Barry Hines (released in USA 1970)

Made the semi-documentary "The Rank and File", about a stike by glassworkers

Helmed the multi-part British TV series "Days of Hope"

Wrote and directed the feature "Black Jack", about an 18th Century highwayman

Worked primarily in television during the 1980s, directing only two features, "Looks and Smiles" (1981) and "Fatherland/Singing the Blues in Red" (1986; released in the USA in 1988)

"Questions of Leadership", his four-part TV documentary on the trade-union movement was never broadcast

First feature in four years, "Hidden Agenda", about American human rights activists investigating abuses in Belfast

First of three successive films centered on working-class characters "Riff-Raff"; also first collaboration with actor Robert Carlyle (released in the USA in 1993)

Directed "Land and Freedom"

Initial collaboration with screenwriter Paul Laverty, "Carla's Song" (released in the USA in 1998)

Subject of the documentary, "Citizen Ken Loach", directed by Karim Dridi

Second film with Laverty, "My Name Is Joe"; shown at the Cannes Film Festival

Third collaboration with Laverty, "Bread and Roses"

Helmed "The Navigators"; screened at Venice International Film Festival; scheduled to air on Channel 4 in November

Directed the film "Sweet Sixteen" about a boy determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison

Directed "Ae Fond Kiss" about tension that arises when a young Asian man enters into a relationship with a Caucasian woman

Helmed "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" about two brothers who join the guerrilla armies formed to battle the British during the Irish Civil War in 1919; won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival