Born in Manchester, he developed an interest in film and television from an early age and initially considered acting as a career. While studying theatre at university, he began teaching himself photography and making short films, which led him to focus on cinematography. After graduating in 1990, he secured a place on Channel 4’s film-production training programme.
Slater Ling built his career in British television, working as a director of photography on drama series and television films. His early credits include Shameless, Spooks, Rose and Maloney and Doctor Who. He photographed the BBC television film Worried About the Boy (2010), directed by Julian Jarrold, and Eric & Ernie (2011), directed by Jonny Campbell. His work on Shameless earned him a nomination for Photography – Drama at the 2004 Royal Television Society Craft and Design Awards.
His subsequent cinematography credits include The Making of a Lady (2012), The Politician’s Husband (2013), In the Flesh (2013), The Casual Vacancy (2015), My Mother and Other Strangers (2016), The Last Post (2017), Years and Years (2019) and the 2020 miniseries Dracula. He has also worked on The Undeclared War (2022), Inside Man (2022), Bad Sisters (2022–2024), Am I Being Unreasonable? (2022) and The Full Monty (2023).
His feature-film credits include Summer (2008), Red Tails (2012), on which he worked as second-unit director of photography, Funny Cow (2017) and Cordelia (2019). His later projects include the television drama The Crow Girl (2025) and the feature film Cold Storage (2026). Alongside cinematography, he has directed episodes of Shameless.