Hodge was educated at Croftinloan School, an independent junior boarding school in Perthshire, and Trinity College, Glenalmond, also in Perthshire. He studied at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge (Bachelor), and the School of Law of the University of Edinburgh (Bachelor of Laws), and worked as a civil servant at the Scottish Office between 1975 and 1978, before being admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1983.
Hodge was appointed Standing Junior Counsel to the Department of Energy from 1989 to 1991, and to the Inland Revenue from 1991 to 1996, in which year he took silk. As a Queen's Counsel, his practice was mainly in commercial law, judicial review and property law. He was appointed a Senator of the College of Justice in 2005, taking the judicial title, Lord Hodge.
Like all judges of the Supreme Courts, he sat in both the Court of Session and High Court of Justiciary, but had particular responsibility as the Exchequer judge in the Court of Session.
On 1 October 2013, Hodge succeeded Lord Hope as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
