The eldest son of Hugh Rosslyn Inigo Sackville-West and Bridget Eleanor Cunliffe, he inherited the title of Baron Sackville on 27 March 2004 on the death of his uncle, Lionel Sackville-West, 6th Baron Sackville.

In 1984, he founded Toucan Books, of which he is now chairman, a packaging company which has worked with publishers on both sides of the Atlantic for more than three decades.

He is currently a governor of the Knole Academy in Sevenoaks and a member of the International Baccalaureate UK board.

He is also the executive chairman of several Sackville family businesses associated with property, works of art and heritage assets.

He first married the journalist Catherine Bennett in 1985 (marriage dissolved 1992), who has written against the Peerage system and what she considers the privileges of the nobility.