In an interview with The Guardian, Curtice said his interest in electoral behaviour began when he was allowed to stay up to watch a results show on television at the 1964 election.

[7] The son of a construction worker and a part-time market researcher, he was privately educated at Truro School from 1965 to 1972,[2][8] and the University of Oxford where he was an undergraduate student and choral scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford reading philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) and graduating in 1976.

[9] He was a contemporary of Tony Blair[9] but described the transition to Oxford as "fairly challenging, coming from a working-class background".

[3] Curtice has frequently appeared on BBC News during broadcast coverage of general elections in the United Kingdom, giving his predictions of the results in 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2017.

[2] Curtice was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to the Social Sciences and Politics.