After working as a bus conductor, building labourer, and tax officer, he attended the Northern Counties College of Education (now Northumbria University) from 1971 to 1974 and qualified as a teacher.

[21] Sting performed jazz in the evenings, on weekends, and during breaks from college and teaching, playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band and Last Exit.

[27] In January 1977, Sting joined Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani (soon replaced by Andy Summers) to form the Police, becoming the band's lead singer, bass player, and primary songwriter.

[38] In September 1981, Sting made his first live solo appearance, on all four nights of the fourth Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball in London's Drury Lane theatre at the invitation of producer Martin Lewis.

[39] His first solo album, 1985's The Dream of the Blue Turtles, featured jazz musicians including Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones, Omar Hakim and Branford Marsalis.

[citation needed] In England, our house is surrounded by barley fields, and in the summer it's fascinating to watch the wind moving over the shimmering surface, like waves on an ocean of gold.

[56] On 15 September 1997, Sting appeared at the Music for Montserrat concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, performing with fellow English artists Paul McCartney, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins and Mark Knopfler.

He performed "Fragile" with Yo-Yo Ma and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, US.

[53] In 2003, Sting released Sacred Love, a studio album featuring collaborations with hip-hop artist Mary J. Blige and sitar performer Anoushka Shankar.

[65] In October 2006, he released an album entitled Songs from the Labyrinth featuring the music of John Dowland (an Elizabethan-era composer) and accompaniment from Bosnian lute player Edin Karamazov.

[71] In 2009, Sting appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary concert, playing "Higher Ground" and "Roxanne" with Stevie Wonder and "People Get Ready" with Jeff Beck.

Despite claiming he thought the concert was sponsored by UNICEF, he faced criticism in the press for receiving a payment of between one and two million pounds from Uzbek president Islam Karimov for the performance.

[81] On 15 September 2011, Sting performed "Fragile" at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, to honour the memory of his friend, financier-philanthropist Herman Sandler, who died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

[107] For the first time in 22 years, BMI has a new top song in our repertoire with Sting's timeless hit "Every Breath You Take", a remarkable achievement that solidifies its place in songwriting history.

[120] On 19 March 2021, Sting released Duets, a compilation album comprising 17 tracks of collaborations with various artists including Eric Clapton, Mary J. Blige, Shaggy, Annie Lennox and Sam Moore.

Sting wrote the set of pop-rock songs "in a year of global pandemic, personal loss, separation, disruption, lockdown and extraordinary social and political turmoil".

[130] The Wall Street Journal reported that Sting gave a private performance on 17 January 2023 for fifty top Microsoft executives at the 2023 World Economic Forum at Davos.

[132] Sting's involvement in human rights began in September 1981, when Martin Lewis included him in the fourth Amnesty International gala, The Secret Policeman's Other Ball, a benefit show co-founded by Monty Python member John Cleese.

In November 1984, he joined Band Aid, a charity supergroup primarily made up of the biggest British and Irish musicians of the era, and sang on "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

[64] In 1984, Sting sang a re-worded version of "Every Breath You Take", titled "Every Bomb You Make" for episode 12 of the first series of the British satirical puppet show Spitting Image.

[140] In 1988, the single "They Dance Alone (Cueca Sola)" chronicled the plight of the mothers, wives and daughters of the "disappeared", political opponents killed by the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

[141] On 15 September 1997, Sting joined Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Phil Collins and Mark Knopfler at London's Royal Albert Hall for Music for Montserrat, a benefit for the Caribbean island devastated by a volcano.

[144][145][146] In 2007, Sting joined Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland for the closing set at the Live Earth concert at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

[151] In 2011, Sting joined more than 30 others in an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron for "immediate decriminalisation of drug possession" if a policy review showed it had failed.

On 2 November 2012, Sting appeared on Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together and sang a version of "Message in a Bottle" to raise funds for those affected by a storm on the east coast of the US that week.

[154] In August 2014, Sting was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to reject Scottish independence from the UK in September's referendum on the issue.

In October 2018, Sting was among a group of British musicians who signed an open letter sent to then Prime Minister Theresa May, drafted by Bob Geldof, calling for "a 2nd vote", stating that Brexit will "impact every aspect of the music industry.

[157] On 6 January 2018, JANA Partners, together with the California State Teachers' Retirement System issued a public letter imploring Apple Inc. to take a more responsible approach towards smartphone addiction among children.

[165] Sting married Styler at Camden Registry Office on 20 August 1992, and the couple had their wedding blessed two days later in the twelfth-century parish church of St Andrew in Great Durnford, Wiltshire, south-west England.

[167] A decade later, Sting was estimated to have a fortune of £320 million in the 2019 Sunday Times Rich List, making him one of the ten wealthiest people in the British music industry.