Chris Standring was born on December 1, 1960 in Buckinghamshire, England, and grew up on a farm near Aylesbury, where he first played classical guitar by himself. He trained classically at the London College of Music, then spent about ten years in London as a freelance player, working for the BBC, writing music for it, and playing in West End theatre orchestras. In February 1991 he moved to Los Angeles. There he met the keyboardist Rodney Lee while both were playing in the band of the British-born singer Lauren Christy, a partnership that has lasted since: as of 2010, Lee had played on every Standring album.

His early Los Angeles years were session and sideman work. He recorded with BeBe and CeCe Winans, Jody Watley, Carole Bayer Sager, Omar and the Solsonics, and in February 1996 he joined the "Guitars, Saxes & More" tour with Marc Antoine, Peter White, Kirk Whalum and Rick Braun. He then toured for about eighteen months in Braun's band and played guitar on three tracks of Braun's 1997 album Body & Soul, writing two of them. In May 1996 he and Lee had released Solar System, an acid-jazz album credited to their duo of that name on Sonic Images, which included vocal covers of "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Me & Mrs. Jones."

Instinct Records signed him in December 1997. His solo debut Velvet (1998) was co-produced by Lee, featured Whalum and Braun as guests, reached No. 9 on the Gavin and Radio & Records airplay charts, and produced the radio single "Cool Shades." Hip Sway (2000), also co-produced with Lee, followed on Instinct with guests including Richard Elliot, who had also taken Standring into his touring group for most of 1999. Groovalicious (2003) came out on Passion Jazz, and Soul Express (2006), on Trippin 'n' Rhythm, brought the Paul Brown-produced single "I Can't Help Myself," which reached No. 18 on Billboard's Smooth Jazz Airplay chart, along with a reworking of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps." He also put together a "Soul Express" tour featuring, among others, the keyboardist Jeff Lorber and the vocalist Jody Watley.

In 2008 he started his own label, Ultimate Vibe Recordings, and has released nearly all of his albums on it since. The first, Love & Paragraphs (2008), put its title track at No. 2 on Smooth Jazz Airplay. Blue Bolero (2010) was a deliberate left turn: an album built around orchestral writing, an acoustic trio and the violin of Barbra Porter, tracing his own path from an English farm to London to Los Angeles. Its single "Bossa Blue" spent nine consecutive weeks at No. 1 on contemporary jazz radio and was named Billboard's contemporary jazz track of 2010. Electric Wonderland (March 20, 2012) swapped the archtop for a Fender Stratocaster and added a string quartet, with Rick Braun on trumpet and flugelhorn and Mitchel Forman on piano, and "Oliver's Twist" went to No. 1. Don't Talk, Dance! (2014) leaned into electronic textures, and its "Sneakin' Out the Front Door" also reached No. 1. Ten (March 8, 2016) went the other way, toward the jazz guitar of Pat Martino and George Benson.

The live album Live in London (2017), recorded at Cadogan Hall with the vocalist Mica Paris as a guest, was followed by Sunlight (March 23, 2018), a soul-jazz set with Paris, Bob James and John Novello. It reached No. 1 on Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Albums chart, the best placing of any of his albums. Real Life (March 20, 2020) produced two more No. 1 airplay singles, "Is There a Doctor in the House?" and "Shake You Up."

Wonderful World (September 3, 2021) is a Great American Songbook album. He recorded it as a guitar trio with a 19-piece string orchestra arranged and conducted by the British bassist Geoff Gascoyne, with the strings recorded at Abbey Road. The rhythm sections alternated Peter Erskine, Harvey Mason and Dave Karasony on drums with Chuck Berghofer, Darek Oleszkiewicz and Gascoyne on bass, Randy Brecker played flugelhorn on "Sunrise," the one Standring original, and Kathrin Shorr sang "What a Wonderful World." Reviewing it for Jazz Journal, Ian Lomax judged it closer to a Diana Krall record than to smooth jazz.

Since then he has kept to a steady schedule on his own label: the holiday album Silent Night (2022), Simple Things (2022), whose "Change the World" reached No. 1, As We Think (2024), whose "Top Hat & Tails" reached No. 1 in 2025, and Time of Change (March 20, 2026), which his own biography counts as his 18th full-length album. Its "All the Good Times" reached No. 3 on Smooth Jazz Airplay, and the closing piece, "A Song for Alistair," is a tribute to his late father. His site describes more than 15 Billboard top-ten singles and eight No. 1s. Apart from performing, he is the author of the guitar courses Play What You Hear and Guitar Made Simple and of Hal Leonard's The Essential Studio Guitarist, and he founded the unsigned-artist showcase A&R Online.

Standring is a contemporary jazz and smooth jazz guitarist who works close to the song: a clear melody, a groove with a 1970s soul and funk accent, and arrangements that leave room. Wikipedia describes him as known for heavy use of 1970s-style musical nuances, and AllMusic files him under contemporary, smooth and soul jazz, jazz-pop and crossover jazz. Reviewing Electric Wonderland for All About Jazz, Jeff Winbush wrote that he understands that what is left out matters as much as what is played, and that he prefers to stay inside the band rather than show off.

His own stated reference points are mostly arrangers and bandleaders rather than guitarists. Of his latest album he has named the arrangements of Quincy Jones, Earth, Wind & Fire, Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays, and Jerry Hey and Larry Williams, and he has described Claus Ogerman's spacious orchestrations as the model for supporting a melody without cluttering it. On the guitar side, Ten was inspired by Pat Martino and George Benson, and he plays a Benedetto archtop as well as the Stratocaster and classical guitars. He has said he has always stayed to the left of the mainstream smooth jazz crowd, and the records bear that out: the orchestral Blue Bolero, the trio-and-strings Wonderful World and the electronic Don't Talk, Dance! sit alongside radio singles that have repeatedly reached No. 1 on the Billboard Smooth Jazz Airplay chart. His audience is the smooth jazz radio and festival circuit, but the playing and writing carry a jazz and arranging backbone that the format does not always require.