Meeke, son of rally engineer Sydney Meeke, was born in Dungannon, Northern Ireland and educated at the Royal School Dungannon. He later went on to study at Queen’s University, Belfast, where he obtained a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He initially worked for M-Sport as a Computer Aided Designer. He took his first step into rallying in 2000, when he won a Peugeot competition for new rally drivers.

His debut event was the Bulldog Rally held in North Wales, even leading the event for a time. After mixed results, his first victory came on the third round of the 2001 Peugeot Super 106 Cup, the Swansea Bay Festival National Rally. In early 2002, Meeke’s career was boosted when he was taken under the wing of the late Colin McRae and contested the British Junior Championship in a Ford Puma. In June, Meeke won in his category in the Scottish Rally after a calculated drive overseen by McRae, and took second on the Jim Clark Rally, his first full tarmac event. Third position in the final round of the series was however enough for Meeke to claim the British Junior Rally Championship title in only his second season in the sport, as well as third in the British S1600 series.

In 2009, Meeke alongside co-driver Paul Nagle contested the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) in a Peugeot UK backed 207 S2000, run by the Belgian Kronos Racing team. He crashed out heavily on the Monte Carlo Rally but went on to win the next three rounds he competed in at Brazil, Portugal, and Belgium. He won the championship at the penultimate round by winning Rally Sanremo in Italy, after his closest rival Jan Kopecky crashed on the second stage.

Meeke finished off the season with a dominant win of the inaugural Rally Scotland, winning 7 of the 13 stages on the way to victory. He starred in a wave of adverts for the Peugeot 207 in 2009, with the tagline “He’s Meeke, but he’s not mild”. For 2010, Meeke continued his successful partnership with Paul Nagle and Peugeot, competing in 10 rounds of the IRC.

On 2 September 2010, Autosport magazine announced that Meeke had signed for the Prodrive team that would run MINI World Rally Championship (WRC) return in 2011. Meeke scored his first WRC points and won the Power Stage at the 2011 Rally Catalunya. Meeke came close to gaining his maiden podium at the final round of the season, the 2011 Rally GB but spun on the Power Stage allowing Henning Solberg to take third place.

On 22 December 2011, Meeke was dropped from the Mini WRC Team for the following month’s Monte Carlo Rally in a crisis within the Prodrive-run team over budget for the 2012 season.

Meeke returned to the WRC in the 2013 Rally Finland, driving for the Abu Dhabi Citroën Total World Rally Team as a stand in for Khalid Al Qassimi.

Meeke was running comfortably in fifth place and set for an impressive points earning finish on his WRC return before rolling in the final section of the penultimate stage of the rally. Meeke would once again drive a Citroën DS3 WRC in September during the 2013 Rally Australia taking the place of works driver Dani Sordo. After completing his first full season in 2014 in the Citroen team, Meeks finished 7th in the standings with 4 podiums to his name. He remained with Citroen for 2015 alongside Mads Ostberg, with Sebastian Loeb also joining him in Monte Carlo. In Monte he finished 10th, winning 3 stages in the rally and the power stage among them. He won his maiden rally in Argentina, ending a 13-year drought of British winners of a WRC event. After winning, dedicated his win to 1995 World Champion Colin McRae, who supported him during his career until McRae’s death in a helicopter crash in 2007. At the end of the 2015 season, Meeke finished 5th in the standings, just behind teammate Mads Ostberg, with 112 points to his name. On the 16th of December it was announced that Meeke would have a 3-year contract with Citroen, up until the end of 2018.

It was announced that Meeke would only compete in eight rounds in the 2016 season, in order to focus on development of the Citroën C3 WRC that would be introduced in 2017. Meeke won two rallies in 2016, in Portugal and in Finland, the latter breaking a record for the highest average speed in a WRC rally. Kris Meeke also became the first driver from United Kingdom to win the famous and fast Rally Finland. Meeke had hoped that his 2016 schedule would allow him to challenge for the 2017 title.

On 17 October 2018, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT confirmed that Meeke will be driving the Toyota Yaris World Rally Car.

On 27 November 2019 Meeke confirmed that he was leaving Toyota.