Although born in Tunbridge Wells in Kent Tim Pears, Tim Pears grew up in mid-Devon. He left school at sixteen and worked in a wide variety of jobs: farm labourer, nurse in a mental hospital, painter and decorator, college night porter and many others. He also made short films, and in 1993 graduated from the Direction course at the National Film and Television School. He wrote the script for a feature film, Loop, produced by Michael Riley at Sterling Pictures released in 1999.

He has had several features published in the Observer Sports Monthly magazine.

In a Land of Plenty was made into a ten part drama series for the BBC by Sterling Pictures (with TalkBack Productions), broadcast in 2001.

Tim Pears was Writer in Residence at Cheltenham Festival of Literature, 2002—03, and from autumn of 2006 has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University.

He lives in Oxford with his wife Hania and two children.