After appearances in various television shows and releasing her first singles, Stansfield, along with Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, formed Blue Zone in 1983.

The band released several singles and one album, but after the success of Coldcut's "People Hold On" in 1989, on which Stansfield was featured, the focus was placed on her solo career.

Stansfield's first solo album Affection (1989) and its worldwide chart-topping lead single "All Around the World" were major breakthroughs in her career.

[6] In 1980, Stansfield won the Search for a Star singing competition,[7] held at the Talk of the Town nightclub, and in 1981 her first single "Your Alibis" was released by Devil Records.

In 1983, Johnnie Hamp produced for Granada Television a documentary directed by Pete Walker, Born in the Sixties: Lisa Stansfield.

Just as the single was climbing the charts (number ninety-nine in the United Kingdom), it was withdrawn by the record company in the wake of the King's Cross fire.

The single was certified Platinum in the U.S. for selling over one million copies, and Gold in many other countries, including the UK, Germany, Australia, Sweden and Austria.

In December 1989, Stansfield was a part of Band-Aid II, a charity supergroup founded to raise money for anti-poverty efforts in Ethiopia, recording "Do They Know It's Christmas?," which topped the UK Singles Chart for three weeks.

Later, she covered "Down in the Depths" for the AIDS charity compilation Red Hot + Blue, released in September 1990, and also filmed a music video for it.

The second single from the Real Love album, "All Woman," peaked inside the top forty in various European countries, including number twenty in the UK.

The next two singles released in Europe included "Time to Make You Mine" and "Set Your Loving Free," which peaked at numbers fourteen and twenty-eight in the UK.

In early 1993 she co-wrote and recorded "In All the Right Places," the theme song from the film Indecent Proposal, starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore.

So Natural garnered positive reviews from music critics, and performed moderately on the charts, reaching number six in the UK and receiving Platinum certification.

In late 1994 she released two singles in the United States: "Make It Right" from the Beverly Hills 90210: The College Years soundtrack, and "Dream Away" (duet with Babyface) from the film The Pagemaster.

Singles released in Europe included "People Hold On (The Bootleg Mixes)," "The Real Thing," "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up," and "The Line."

In July 1999, Stansfield's duet with Barry White "The Longer We Make Love" was released as a single from his album Staying Power.

However, Face Up performed somewhat unsuccessfully on the charts, reaching top forty in only few countries, including Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The Grammy Award-winning Trevor Horn produced her next pop-oriented album, The Moment, which was released in the United Kingdom on 27 September 2004.

In February 2005, The Moment was issued in the rest of Europe by Edel, achieving moderate success on the charts in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, reaching numbers fifteen, sixteen and twenty-two, respectively.

[9] In October 2013, it was announced that the release date of the album had been pushed back to 31 January 2014 in Germany, and 10 February 2014 in the United Kingdom.

The first single, "Can't Dance," premiered on Ken Bruce's BBC Radio 2 show on 14 August 2013, and was digitally released on 16 October 2013.

[10] Seven, which was produced and written in the United Kingdom by Stansfield and Ian Devaney, features the tracks "Can't Dance," "The Rain," "Stupid Heart," "Conversation," "The Crown," "So Be It," and "Picket Fence.

"[9] Recorded in both Los Angeles and Manchester, Stansfield collaborated with John Robinson and Grammy Award-winning orchestrator Jerry Hey, both integral to the creation of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad albums.

[13] In November 2014, Edsel Records released The Collection 1989–2003, a thirteen-CD and five-DVD box set, with five of Stansfield's studio albums and many rare additional tracks, remixes, promo videos, live concert footage, and new interviews.

She played Joan Woodcock in the Nick Mead-directed movie Swing, also starring Hugo Speer, and recorded songs for the soundtrack.

Swing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack received positive reviews from music critics, and peaked at number six on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart.

In February 2002, she made her stage debut in The Vagina Monologues at the Arts Theatre in the West End of London, together with Anita Dobson and Cecilia Noble.

Stansfield dubbed one of the characters (Millie, an elf) for the English version of the Finnish animated film Quest for a Heart, released in December 2007.

Stansfield joined the cast of the 2008 film The Edge of Love, directed by John Maybury, playing the role of Ruth Williams.

[23] In 2008, Stansfield sold her six-bedroom Victorian house "Mount Henry" on Torca Road in Dalkey, Ireland, for €6 million to Yorkshire business tycoon Ed Clark.