Starkey was born the only child of Quaker parents in 1945 at Kendal, Westmorland (now Cumbria), England. His parents Robert Starkey and Elsie Lyon, married 10 years previously in Oldham, at a Friends meeting house in Greaves Street. Robert had a career as an engineer, while Elsie was working as a cotton weaver, as her father Benjamin Lyon had done before her. His mother, a strong personality who worked as a cleaner during his upbringing, had a powerful influence on Starkey's formative years; he portrays his father, Robert Starkey, an industrial worker, as a somewhat ineffectual man.

Starkey was educated at Kendal Grammar School (now known as Kirkbie Kendal School) in the town of Kendal in Cumbria. Despite suffering from physical disabilities, Starkey did well at school and won a scholarship to Fitzwilliam College at the University of Cambridge, of which he is an Honorary Fellow. As a student at Cambridge, he fell under the influence of Professor G.R. Elton. According to Starkey, Elton provided the stern father figure he had never had, against whom to rebel.

From 1972 to 1998 Starkey taught history at the London School of Economics. During this period, he embarked on a career as a broadcaster, and soon acquired a reputation for abrasiveness, particularly on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze, a debating programme, on which he was a ruthless interrogator of "witnesses" examining contemporary moral questions. In the 1990s he presented a current affairs phone-in show on Talk Radio UK (since relaunched as talkSPORT) where his manner with callers served to bolster his rebarbative reputation. However, the programme, which he described as "three hours of brainy blarney" was extremely popular. His rudeness has been singled out by his detractors. In the televised Trial of Richard III, he appeared as a witness for the prosecution, and accused the defence counsel, "Sir Brian Dillon" (actually a thinly-disguised Richard du Cann QC), of having a "small lawyer's mind". More recently, he received considerable attention when he compared Elizabeth II unfavourably with her predecessors, calling her an uneducated housewife, and comparing her cultural attitude to Joseph Goebbels, by suggesting that she gave him the impression that every time she heard the word culture she wanted to reach for a gun (in fact the line is most commonly attributed to Hermann Göring, but was really written by the lesser known Nazi playwright Hanns Johst).

Starkey elicited further controversy in March 2009 by arguing that female historians had "feminised" history by writing social history or focusing on female subjects. He claimed that undue attention had been given to Henry VIII's wives, even though he had presented his own television series on the subject. He stated: "But it's what you expect from feminised history, the fact that so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience. Unhappy marriages are big box office." He also argued that, although several monarchs were female, including Queen Mary, Elizabeth I, and Queen Victoria, women should not be considered "power players" in pre-20th century Europe. He was accused of misogyny by historian Lucy Worsley.

His television series on Henry VIII of England, Elizabeth I of England, the six Wives of Henry VIII (The Six Wives of Henry VIII) and on lesser-known Tudor monarchs have made him a familiar face. In 2004 he began a Channel 4 multi-year series Monarchy, which chronicled the history of English kings and queens from the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms onward. His greatest contribution to Tudor research has been in explaining the complicated social etiquette of Henry's household, exploring the complicated nature of Catherine Howard's fall in late 1540—1542, and rescuing Anne Boleyn from the historical doldrums by persuasively proving that she was a committed religious reformer, keen politician and sparkling intellectual. Starkey has also rejected the historical community's tendency to portray Catherine of Aragon as a "plaster-of-Paris saint".

In October 2006 he started hosting the second series of The Last Word now known as Starkey's Last Word. He also makes regular radio broadcasts and contributes to many magazines and newspapers. Starkey also uses his historical talents in many series' and documentaries, including The Mind of a Tyrant in April 2009, the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the throne.

Starkey was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1994. He was appointed CBE in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list.

In April, 2009, Starkey acted as Guest Curator for Henry VIII: Man & Monarch, an exhibition of documents (and some portraits) at the British Library.

David Starkey was, according to himself, raised in an austere, frugal environment of near-poverty, with his parents often unemployed for long periods of time, an environment which, he later stated, taught him "the value of money". Starkey's politics "remained essentially in the middle-of the-road Labour left until the end of the 1970s," when the Callaghan administration "blew the nation's finances". He's now a self-confessed contrarian, who has "always rather enjoyed fireworks and games" and attracts controversy with many of his positions on issues such as multiculturalism: "What's striking about our problem ethnic communities is that they are the ones with the least commitment to self-betterment." Starkey also offended some viewers of BBC One's Question Time in April 2009 when, in response to a question about potentially having St. George's Day declared a national holiday for England, he criticised Scottish, Irish and Welsh nationalisms and described these nations as "feeble little countries". In the same context, he described England as a "formerly great" nation. More recently, in Any Questions on Radio 4 on 8/9 October, he referred to his fellow guest as having "prattled on".{BBC Radio 4 'Any Questions?' 9th October 2010}

He was a supporter of the Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality.

Starkey is openly gay. His partner is James Brown, a publisher and book designer. Starkey has often discussed his sexuality on The Moral Maze and other TV talk shows.

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David Starkey