Skeat was educated at Whitgift School, Croydon and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1929 with a second-class BA in the Classical Tripos.

Skeat's work coincided with two important acquisitions by the British Museum Trustees: the Codex Sinaiticus and the apocryphal Gospel Egerton 2 Papyrus (a.k.a.

He made a name for himself with important contributions to palaeography, papyrology and codicology, particularly in relation to these two acquisitions.

Skeat was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1963, but resigned (along with his friend Colin Roberts) in 1979, in protest against its decision not to expel Anthony Blunt after the latter was exposed as a former Soviet spy.

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