Standen was born on a British Army base in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland,[3] and grew up in Leicestershire, East Midlands, England.

[6] In 2004, Standen appeared in Waking the Dead;[4] the Second World War documentary drama Ten Days to D-Day;[4] and took the lead role of Major Alan Marshall in Zero Hour[4] a TV dramatisation of Special Air Service mission operation Barras in Sierra Leone.

The next year he appeared in three episodes of the British soap Doctors and Tom Brown's Schooldays, the acclaimed[7] ITV adaptation of the book by Thomas Hughes.

[8] Standen was part of the main cast of the TV series Camelot for Starz in which he portrayed the famous Arthurian knight Sir Gawain.

[9][10] Clive portrayed Bryan Mills in the television adaptation of Taken [3][10] then starred as Colonel Knox in the Screen Gems thriller film Patient Zero.