Born in London to middle class German Jewish parents, Ucko attained his BA and PhD in the anthropology department of UCL, where he proceeded to work from 1962 to 1972, also publishing a number of significant books on archaeology.

Remaining at UCL, in the Institute of Archaeology, he proceeded to study for a PhD in the anthropomorphic figurines of the ancient Near East, under the supervision of John Evans, completing it in 1962.

He organised two academic conferences there, which subsequently led to two edited volumes: The Domestication of Plants and Animals and Man, Settlement and Urbanism, both of which became "standard texts.

In May 1981, following a spell of consultancy work for the Zimbabwean government, he was appointed Professor of Archaeology at the University of Southampton in England; he took up the position, left vacant by Colin Renfrew, in January 1982.

Senior figures in the UISPP argued that the congress must be open to all archaeologists "with no distinction of race, country or political persuasion", a position supported by the Society for American Archaeology.

[3] His later successor as director, Stephen Shennan, would comment that Ucko went about his job "with characteristic forcefulness, making new appointments, overturning existing structures and overhauling the syllabus at all levels.

[6] He also emphasised the importance of the artefact collections owned by UCL and IoA, believing that they had great potential as teaching aids and for public outreach.

[2][5] Ucko retired from the position of director in 2005, at which time the UCL-IoA had become the world's largest archaeology department, with over 70 academic staff and 600 students from 40 countries.

[3] In 2006 he travelled to ten Chinese cities with colleague Wang Tao, interviewing academic archaeologists about how they taught the subject; he planned to produce a book on this topic, but had not done so by the time of his death.

[4] A festschrift titled A Future for Archaeology, edited by Robert Layton, Stephen Shennan and Peter Stone, was produced in Ucko's honour in 2006.

[3] His obituary for The Telegraph described Ucko as a "combative, nervy man" who had a tendency to become aggressive under pressure and who viewed the world "in terms of friends and enemies".