Christopher Wheeldon trained at the Royal Ballet School in London before joining the Royal Ballet in 1991. In 1993, he moved to the New York City Ballet, where he was promoted to soloist in 1998. He became the first choreographer to be appointed as the NYCB's resident choreographer in July 2001. Since then, Christopher Wheeldon has created and staged productions for most of the world's major ballet companies. He now holds dual American and British citizenship and resides in New York.

He is an artistic associate of the Royal Ballet, where he created Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter's Tale in co-production with the National Ballet of Canada. In 2012, his ballet Cinderella premiered at the Dutch National Ballet. He has also choreographed for the Metropolitan Opera, the film Center Stage (2000), the Broadway musical Sweet Smell of Success (2002), and the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. In 2016, he served as the artistic director of the Fashion Forward exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Other career highlights include reimagined versions of The Nutcracker for the Joffrey Ballet and Cinderella for the English National Ballet, Corybantic Games for the Royal Ballet, and Like Water for Chocolate for both the Royal Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre. His latest full-length ballet, Oscar©, premiered at the Australian Ballet in 2024.

In 2014, Christopher Wheeldon directed and choreographed the musical An American in Paris, which was staged in Paris, New York, Hamburg, Sydney, and London. More recently, he directed and choreographed MJ The Musical in 2022. Each of these productions won four Tony Awards, including two for Best Choreography.

Among his many accolades are two Tony Award nominations for Best Director, an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Choreography and Best Direction, the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center, the American Choreography Award, the Dance Magazine Award, the Léonide Massine Prize, the Benois de la Danse, and the Olivier Awards for his ballets Aeternum and Polyphonia.

Christopher Wheeldon has been appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.