Education
Bristow was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge where he obtained a Bachelor in 1986.
Bristow was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge where he obtained a Bachelor in 1986.
Bristow joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) in 1990. In 1992, after attending a year of Romanian language training, he was posted to Bucharest, Romania where he worked for three years as Second Secretary. He then returned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London where he worked in the European Union Department.
From 1996–1998, he served as Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Europe.
After a year of Turkish language training, he worked in Ankara, Turkey as Head of the Political Section from 1999–2002. From 2002–2003 he worked in Rome at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Defence College.
In 2003 Bristow worked on the Iraq Policy Unit, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Bristow become the British Ambassador to Azerbaijan from February 2004 until 2007. He was Minister (Deputy Head of Mission) in Moscow for 2007-2010.
He then returned to London as Director, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, from 2010 until 2012.
He subsequently replaced Thomas Drew as Director, Intelligence and National Security. In 2015, he was succeeded by Jonathan Allen and appointed to be Ambassador to the Russian Federation.