He was educated at Wellington College, and left when he was 17. From 1959 to 1962, he studied at the Edinburgh College of Art before winning a scholarship to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he won further scholarships to travel to Sweden in 1963 and the United States in 1964. He graduated from the AA in 1965 with an honours diploma, and having entered into a partnership with Terry Farrell, he joined the Royal Institute of British Architects two years later in 1967.

He worked with Farrell for 15 years before establishing his own firm, Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, in 1980. In 1989, he won a Royal Institute of British Architects national award for his design of the Financial Times printworks in East London. After designing Britain’s pavilion for the Seville Expo in 1992, he was appointed a CBE in 1993, and the following year saw his Waterloo railway terminal awarded the accolade of ‘Building of the Year’. That same year (1994) also saw him elected a vice-chairman of the Architectural Association, a member of the Royal Academy and a member of the American Institute of Architects.

Grimshaw was made a Knight Bachelor in 2002 New Year Honours for services to Architecture. He received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2004 He received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2019.

In December 2004, Grimshaw was elected President of the Royal Academy of Arts, a position he held until 2011. Grimshaw is behind the National Institute for Research into Aquatic Habitats (NIRAH) design.