Neale holds a physics degree from the University of Nottingham and is a fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. He began his professional career at Philips Electronics Defence Systems in Crawley, West Sussex in 1984, working on electronic semiconductor research including microwave technology, antennas, and low-noise amplifiers for naval defence systems designed to detect missiles.
In 1991 he moved to BAE Systems, initially as a project design engineer working on the Advanced Turboprop and Regional Jet product lines. Over the following decade he took on broadening responsibilities across engineering, production, flight operations, sales, and customer support at facilities in Manchester, Prestwick, Brough, and Warton. By 1999 he was programme director for the BAE Systems Hawk Jet, an aircraft best known in service with the Royal Air Force Red Arrows aerobatic display team, with over 900 Hawks sold to eighteen operators worldwide.
Neale joined McLaren Racing as operations director in 2001, arriving at a team running David Coulthard and Mika Häkkinen in the West McLaren Mercedes MP4-16. His initial remit covered technical purchasing, planning, manufacturing, and quality functions.
In 2005 he was appointed managing director of McLaren Racing. The defining moment of his time in that role came in 2008 when Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team, claiming the title in dramatic fashion at the final race of the season in Brazil. The championship represented the culmination of years of operational work to rebuild McLaren's competitive infrastructure after a difficult mid-decade period.
By 2015 Neale was acting chief executive of McLaren Racing, overseeing operational and commercial activities and representing the team at the Formula One Strategy Group. This period coincided with McLaren's troubled reunion with Honda as an engine partner, a collaboration that produced chronic reliability and performance problems across three seasons.
In 2016, shortly before Ron Dennis stepped down as chief executive officer, Neale was appointed chief operating officer of McLaren Group — the parent organisation encompassing McLaren Racing, McLaren Automotive, and McLaren Applied Technologies. In this broader role he reported to the executive chairman and contributed to group-wide growth strategy and organisational development, overseeing a portfolio that included high-performance road cars such as the 720S and Speedtail alongside the Formula One team.
In September 2021 it was announced that Neale would step down as chief operating officer and leave McLaren Group. In November 2021 he joined Filtronic, a manufacturer of RF and microwave equipment, as non-executive chairman.
Neale's career at McLaren is notable for bridging the worlds of defence aerospace engineering and elite motorsport management. He arrived with deep technical and operational experience from large-scale commercial aircraft programmes and applied that discipline to one of Formula One's most demanding team environments. His twenty-year tenure at McLaren covered a period of significant change for the organisation, from championship competitiveness under Ron Dennis to the structural transformation into a broader automotive and technology group.