Peter Scott was born and grew up in North East England and attended Whitley Bay High School. He received his undergraduate degree with first class honors in medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry from Loughborough University in 2001, after conducting research with Raymond Jones. He subsequently obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from Durham University in 2005, where he was a member of Ustinov College, under the mentorship of Patrick G. Steel. Scott then moved to the United States to undertake postdoctoral research in organometallic chemistry at SUNY Buffalo under Huw Davies, and PET radiochemistry at the University of Michigan with Michael Kilbourn.