Bishop Tim Stevens was raised in a rural vicarage in Essex and went to Chigwell School. After leaving school he spent a year in Zambia with Voluntary Service Overseas and then read Classics and English at Selwyn College, Cambridge.

Subsequently he spent five years as a Management Trainee with the British Overseas Airways Corporation. Which was followed by two years as a Second Secretary in the South Asian Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

He trained for ordination at Ripon Hall, Oxford and subsequently at Ripon College, Cuddesdon. He was ordained in 1976 as Curate in East Ham, East London.

As Bishop's Urban Officer in the Chelmsford Diocese and as Archdeacon of West Ham he was engaged in developing the Church Urban Fund projects and in reshaping Church buildings for the contemporary needs of the Church's mission in the City. Before taking up his present position, he was Suffragan Bishop of Dunwich in the County of Suffolk, working particularly with community and voluntary agencies in preparation for Regional Government.

Bishop Tim Stevens was appointed the Bishop of Leicester in 1999.

Bishop Tim is a member of the House of Lords, the Archbishops Council and Standing Committee of the House of Bishops. He is also the chair of the Council of Westcott House theological college in Cambridge.

Bishop Tim has a wife, Wendi, and two children, Rachel and Adam, both of whom are now adult and have left home.