laing's first acting role was a guest part in "minder" in 1994. during 1995 and 1996 he appeared in "strike force", "devil's advocate", "3 steps to heaven" and "blood and peaches". he also made a guest appearance in "heartbeat". he then appeared in his first movie, "gaston's war", playing harry as well as appearing in cradle of fear, in one of the main roles. he appeared in "burn it", playing mike, and later played the role of jack hewit, in the bbc miniseries "cambridge spies". he starred in "butterfly man" in 2002. in 2004–2005 he played simon parker in the bbc medical drama "holby city". in september 2005 he played jeff clarke in the second live episode of "the bill". from 23 october to 29 november 2008, stuart played nigel in the leicester square theatre's production of matthew todd's blowing whistles, alongside paul keating and newcomer daniel finn. in 2012, he appeared as alex redmond in the bbc soap opera "doctors". and acted in vera itv (season 10 episode 2) january 2019 played rob bayliss