Skorupski studied philosophy and economics at Christ's College, Cambridge, from which he received both an MA and a PhD.

• 1971—72 Visiting Lecturer at the University of Ife, Nigeria (now Obafemi Awolowo University)
• 1974 Visiting Professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (the University of Louvain), Belgium
• 1974—76 Research Fellow at Swansea University (University of Wales, Swansea)
• 1976—84 Lecturer at the University of Glasgow
• 1984—90 Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
• 1990—present Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews.

Skorupski was President of the Aristotelian Society in 1990—91. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Political Thought of the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, in 1991, and was named Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1992.