Working first in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory, he moved to the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory, and in 1938 moved to Wool Industries Research Institution in Leeds. He was head of the biochemistry division of Boots Pure Drug Company from 1946 to 1948, when he joined the Medical Research Council. There, he was appointed head of the physical chemistry division of the National Institute for Medical Research in 1952, and was chemical consultant from 1956 to 1959.

In 1943 he married Judith Bagenal (1918-2006), and together they had two sons and three daughters. In the last years of his life he suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

Martin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1950, and made a CBE in 1960.

Archer Martin shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography with Richard Synge.

He published far fewer papers than the typical Nobel winners—only 70 in all—but his ninth paper won the Nobel. The University of Houston dropped him from its chemistry faculty in 1979 (when he was 69 years old) because he was not publishing enough.

Archer Martin’s 1954 paper with A. T. James, “Gas-Liquid Chromatography: A Technique for the Analysis and Identification of Volatile Materials” reported the discovery of gas-liquid chromatography. This publication was honored by a Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award from the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society presented in 2016 to the Francis Crick Institute. The research was actually performed at the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, which became the Francis Crick Institute in 2015.