Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia and London Symphony Orchestra and formed the Jacobean Ensemble with Thurston Dart before going to Hancock, Maine in the United States to study conducting with Pierre Monteux at his school there. In 1956 he founded the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields chamber orchestra and has made many recordings conducting them. He conducted the Minnesota Orchestra from 1979 to 1986 and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1989. He was knighted in 1985.
Marriner has conducted a range of repertoire, but is particularly noted as an interpreter of Baroque music. He selected and arranged the music used in the film Amadeus and oversaw the recording of its soundtrack at the helm of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Neville Marriner is the father of the clarinettist Andrew Marriner.