He grew up with two brothers and a sister in Fishponds, a suburb of his hometown. The father was a bus driver and the mother was a cashier. During his school days he discovered his interest in singing. Potts sang in the choir at Chester Park Junior School and for more than ten years in other church choirs in Bristol, including Christ Church. After graduating from college, he studied philosophy at the University of Plymouth. He wrote his dissertation on the question of evil and suffering in a world created by God. Meanwhile, he further developed his singing voice through privately financed lessons. In 1999 he took part in the British talent show My Kind of Music and won £8,000. With the help of this profit he took lessons at opera schools in northern Italy under Vilma Vernocchi and Katia Ricciarelli and was accepted into the master class. He paid around £12,000 (approx. EUR18,000) for his training.

Between 1999 and 2003 he appeared on various amateur stages as a tenor without a fee. Of particular note were his performances at the amateur opera Bath Opera in 2001 as Don Carlos in the opera Don Carlos and as Radames in the opera Aida, both by Giuseppe Verdi. Due to a ruptured appendix in 2003 and a benign cancerous tumor on his adrenal gland, Potts was unable to continue his stage work. In the same year, 2003, he married Julie-Ann, who was ten years his junior. From then on he earned his living as a cashier in a supermarket. From 2005 he worked as a salesman in a mobile phone shop. On June 9, 2007, after a three-year break from singing, Potts appeared in Simon Cowell's British talent show "Britain''s Got Talent" on ITV in Cardiff. He interpreted the aria Nessun dorma from the opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini.

During his further appearances on June 14, 2007 and June 17, 2007 in front of the jurors Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden, his success continued with the main part of the piece Con te partirò (Time to Say Goodbye) by Francesco Sartori and the unabridged one Version of Nessun Dorma continued. Paul Potts then won the competition. On December 3, 2007, he was invited to perform in front of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in the 2007 Royal Variety Performance. He also received £100,000 and a record deal from Sony BMG. His first album entitled "One Chance" followed and was charted in the top 10 internationally. Excerpts from the show "Britain's Got Talent" on video portals such as YouTube made Potts known worldwide. A large part of the German audience became aware of Potts from July 2008: the singer was seen in an overly long Deutsche Telekom commercial with excerpts from the program "Britain's Got Talent".

In 2009 Potts was awarded the Echo in the International Rock/Pop Artist category. He released his first best-off collection in 2013, entitled The Greatest Hits. After "Home" (2014) and "On Stage" (2017), his ninth studio album "Winter Dreams" followed in 2018.