Mr Eccles qualified from the Royal London Hospital Dental School as a dentist in 1985. He spent two years working as a maxillo-facial surgeon before studying medicine at the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School. He qualified as a doctor in 1992. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FRCS) in 1995.

His interest has always been in reconstructive surgery and he began his training as a plastic surgeon in 1996. During his plastic surgery training he specialised in head and neck and cranio-facial surgery. This training included fellowships in head and neck surgery at the Royal Marsden Hospital, a microsurgery fellowship at Charing Cross Hospital and an aesthetic surgery fellowship at the Wellington Hospital, London. His training in craniofacial surgery was cemented with a fellowship at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital where he is now a consultant. At the end of his training he was awarded the McGregor medal by the Royal College of Surgeons for outstanding performance in the FRCS (Plast) examination. He joined the GMC Specialist Register for Plastic Surgery in 2004.