Skidelsky read history at Jesus College, Oxford, and is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, England.

[8][9] Skidelsky currently writes a column on economic history for Project Syndicate, an international media organization.

On 15 July 1991 he was created a life peer as Baron Skidelsky of Tilton in the County of East Sussex[11] and in 1992 he joined the Conservative Party.

[6] Around the time of the announcement of his peerage it was speculated that David Owen, a co-founder of the SDP, had lobbied then Prime Minister John Major for Skidelsky's appointment.

[12] He was made an opposition spokesman in the Lords, first for Culture, then on the Treasury (1997–1999), but he was removed by William Hague, then party leader, for publicly opposing NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

[6] In September 2015 Skidelsky endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election, writing in The Guardian: "Corbyn should be praised, not castigated, for bringing to public attention these serious issues concerning the role of the state and the best ways to finance its activities.

[15][16][17] On 28 February 2022, he signed a letter to the Financial Times on the subject of Ukraine, along with David Owen and others, that stated: "NATO governments have rightly said they are willing to address Russia's security concerns, but then say in the same breath that Russia has no legitimate security concerns because NATO is a purely defensive alliance.

"[18][19] On 17 April 2022, he argued against Finland's joining NATO[20][21] and shortly after against the imposition of economic sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

[24][25] The second volume of Skidelsky's three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes The Economist as Saviour, 1920–1937 won the Wolfson History Prize in 1992.