Lord Waheed Alli was born in South London, the son of a Trinidadian nurse and a Guyanese mechanic, he went to Stanley Technical College in South Norwood and obtained nine 'O' levels, and at the Norbury Manor School in South London. He became a researcher on the magazine Planned Savings, and then moved to Save and Prosper. After several years he became a consultant in the City.

In the mid-1980s he teamed up with Charlie Parsons who became the producer of Club X at LWT. He and Waheed Alli set up their own company, 24 Hour Productions, which produced the second series called The Word, which became the most talked about television program in U.K.. In 1992 their company merged with Bob Geldof's company, Planet Pictures. The result was Planet 24 which became the biggest single supplier of programmes to Channel 4, and after Thames, the largest independent producer in Britain. In 1995 Planet 24 made Gaytime TV for the BBC. The company was sold to Carlton Communications in March, 1999, and Waheed Alli became a board director of Carlton Communications.

He was raised to the peerage as Baron Alli, of Norbury in the London Borough of Croydon, and took his place in the House of Lords on 21st. July, 1998. Waheed Alli is the first openly-gay life-peer.