Branson was born at Stonefield Nursing Home in Blackheath, South London, the son of Edward James Branson and Eve Branson (née Huntley Flindt). His grandfather, the Right Honourable Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a Judge of the High Court of Justice and a Privy Councillor. Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School (now Bishopsgate School) until the age of thirteen. He then attended Stowe School until he was fifteen. Branson has dyslexia, resulting in poor academic performance as a student, yet by the age of fifteen he had started two ventures that eventually failed: one growing Christmas trees and another raising budgerigars. At sixteen, Branson left school and moved to London, where he began his first successful business, Student magazine. When he was seventeen, he opened his first charity, the "Student Advisory Centre."

Branson formed Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984, launched Virgin Mobile in 1999, Virgin Blue in Australia in 2000, and later failed in a 2000 bid to handle the National Lottery. On October 13, 2007, Branson's Virgin Group sought to add Northern Rock to its empire after submitting an offer which would result in Branson personally owning 30% of the company, changing the company's name from Northern Rock to Virgin Money. The Daily Mail ran a campaign against his bid and Vince Cable suggested in the House of Commons that Branson's criminal conviction for tax evasion might be felt by some as a good enough reason not to trust him with public money. On January 10, 2008, Branson's Virgin Healthcare announced that it would open a chain of health care clinics that would offer conventional medical care alongside homeopathic and complementary therapies. The Financial Times reported that Ben Bradshaw, UK's health minister, welcomed the launch. “I am pleased that Virgin Healthcare is proposing to work with GPs to help develop more integrated services for patients.”

Branson was knighted by the Labour Party (UK) government in 1999 for 'services to entrepreneurship' and presented as a millennium icon. In the 1980s, he was briefly given the post of "litter tsar" by Margaret Thatcher—charged with "keeping Britain tidy". He was again seen as close to the government when the Labour Party came to power in 1997. In 2005 he declared that there were only negligible differences between the two main parties on economic matters. He has frequently been mentioned as a candidate for Mayor of London, and polls have suggested he would be a viable candidate, though he has yet to express interest.