Devlin has a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics from King's College London (1968) and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Bristol (1971).

In addition to his Stanford positions he is a Consulting Research Professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh, and a Visiting Professor at the Duxx Graduate School of Business Leadership in Monterrey, Mexico.

He is a regular contributor to NPR's popular magazine program Weekend Edition (where he is known as "the Math Guy") and a frequent contributor to various other local and national radio programs, both in the USA and Britain, commenting on advances in mathematics and computing. In addition, he has worked on and appeared in a number of television programs. He writes a monthly column, "Devlin's Angle," on the web journal MAA Online. Since 1983, he has written a regular column on mathematics and computers for The Guardian newspaper in his native Britain.

Devlin is the author of twenty-three books, one interactive book on CD-ROM and over sixty-five published research articles. He is a member of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a World Economic Forum Fellow. He has received numerous awards.

He is heavily engaged in promoting the public understanding of mathematics and its role in modern society, topics on which he lectures extensively around the world