Lloyd was born in Broughty Ferry, Scotland on 29 April 1948.
[1] He read English at the University of Manchester, but became interested in archaeology by volunteering at excavations led by Barri Jones, a professor of archaeology at Manchester, in Northeast England and Wales.
[2] While working at Cambridge University Press as a trainee editor upon graduation, Lloyd spent his spare time at excavations.
During a project in Benghazi in 1972, the Society for Libyan Studies asked him to become the field director for their excavations at Sidi Khrebish.
[1] In 1994 Lloyd, alongside fellow Oxford archaeologist Gary Lock and others, initiated the Sangro Valley Project, an archaeological excavation in Abruzzo, Italy.