Compression creep experiments were carried out on nano-crystalline precursor derived Si–B–C–N ceramics in atmospheric ambience at loads varying from 5 to 100 MPa and in the temperature range 1350–1500 °C to investigate the high temperature deformation behaviour and understand the mechanisms of deformation. The activation energy in the temperature range of 1350–1500 °C was determined to be 98 ± 12 kJ/mol and the stress exponent was found to be 1.1.