He attended Wadham House, a private school, before gaining a scholarship to Clifton College in 1916.

In 1920, he obtained a scholarship at St John's College, Cambridge, and four years later graduated with a First Class Honours degree.

He returned to England, due to ill health, and met and married a chemist, Margaret Forsythe Marsden, the daughter of a civil servant.

[1][2] In 1931, Yates was appointed assistant statistician at Rothamsted Experimental Station by R.A. Fisher.

[1][2] He retired from Rothamsted to become a senior research fellow at Imperial College London.