[5] He started his career in 2012 when he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company acting in numerous production including The Merry Wives of Windsor (2012), King Lear (2014), Hamlet (2016), and Romeo and Juliet (2016).

[6] Essiedu joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 2012 to play Fenton in Phillip Breen's production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

[10]Paapa voiced Tunde in the BBC Radio 3 drama As Innocent As You Can Get (2016) by Rex Obano,[11] and in the BBC Radio 4 drama Wide Open Spaces the same year, in which he played the role of a man determined to overcome his agoraphobia in order to keep his promise to visit his daughter's grave on the first anniversary of her death.

[12] Essiedu began his television career with roles as Demetrius in Russell T Davies' television film adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream (2016), Otto in the period drama miniseries The Miniaturist (2017), Nate Akindele in the Channel 4 miniseries Kiri (2018), and Ed Washburn in the BBC One drama Press (2018).

He made his feature film debut in a small role as a policeman in Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express (2017) an adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel of the same name.

He is brilliant as a clever and nervous man, quite possibly gay, desperately searching for belonging via imported ideals that he's always secretly known are a sham.

[16] That same year Essiedu began starring in the Sky Max science fiction time loop series The Lazarus Project for which he received a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor nomination.

"[18] He returned to the stage starring opposite Taylor Russell in the Jamie Lloyd directed revival of the Lucy Prebble play The Effect at the National Theatre in 2023 and at The Shed in 2024.