He started playing the clarinet at the age of 8 and moved onto the saxophone at the age of 12.

Whilst at school he played with various concert, youth and big bands, having sax lessons locally with George King, and later Dean Masser, Nick Walker and Simon Allen.

He attended the Junior Jazz course for a year at the Royal Academy of Music. The course was lead by Nick Smart. At this time he played with various British jazz musicians such as Tim Garland and Pete Churchill.

At the age of 16 he guested with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and, after continued rehearsals, obtained a place on tenor sax. At this point, Nik had moved down to London, to take up a course in Jazz at Trinity College of Music in Greenwich. At Trinity he recieved lessons from Martin Speake, Mark Lockheart and Mick Foster.