Elliott was brought up in Rawmarsh, near Rotherham, in the then West Riding of Yorkshire. He attended Rawmarsh Comprehensive School and later worked as a joiner at British Steel Corporation. He managed to establish himself as a world class athlete while working full-time. He began his athletic career by running in the Young Athletes League for his local club, Rotherham Harriers, and his 800m time of 1 minute 53.3 seconds has been the under-17 record since 1979.^{[citation needed]} He also held the UK under-17 record with a time of 1 minute 50.7 seconds, which stood for nearly 10 years.^{[citation needed]} He excelled as a schoolboy athlete, winning four English Schools titles, twice at 800 metres and twice over the country.^{[citation needed]}

In August 1982, he set a 4 × 800 metres relay World Record of 7 minutes 3.89 seconds with fellow British athletes Sebastian Coe, Steve Cram and Garry Cook.^{[citation needed]} At the 1983 World Championships held in Helsinki, he finished 4th in the 800m final.^{[citation needed]}

Elliott was not selected for the 1500m at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, losing out to the eventual gold and silver medallists, Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram, and the then world record holder, Steve Ovett. At the time, it was a very controversial decision.^{[citation needed]} After Ovett and Cram had secured their places, the third place was either Coe's or Elliott's. Although Elliott defeated Coe at the AAA's Championships, the selectors opted for Coe.^{[citation needed]} Elliott was selected for the 800m and qualified for the semi-finals, but had to withdraw due to an injury.^{[citation needed]}

Elliott won a bronze medal in the 800m at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh behind Steve Cram and Tom McKean.^{[citation needed]} He then won a silver medal in the event at the 1987 World Championships in Rome.^{[citation needed]} The following year, he won the silver medal in the 1500m at the Olympic Games in Seoul.^{[citation needed]} He also finished fourth in the Olympic 800m final.^{[citation needed]} In January 1990, he became the Commonwealth champion over 1500m in Auckland.^{[citation needed]} Later in the year, he ran 1:42.97 over 800m in Seville (ranking him No. 1 in the world for 1990, and making him the third fastest Briton of all time over the distance).^{[citation needed]} This made him the favourite to win both middle distance gold medals at the 1990 European Championships in Split.^{[citation needed]} However, due to injury problems he only entered for the 1500m and was tripped in the semi-final. After an appeal by the British team he was reinstated (against his own wishes and those of some other athletes^{[citation needed]}), and went on to finish fourth in the final.^{[citation needed]} A year later, he defeated the European champion Jens-Peter Herold in the 1500m race at the European Cup in Frankfurt. He also won the Fifth Avenue Mile in 1987, 1989 and 1990, the latter in 3:47.83 min.^{[citation needed]}

He set a British indoor mile record of 3:52.02 in 1990, which stood until bettered by Josh Kerr in 2022.

After retiring from competition running in 1992, Elliott became a coach and race organiser. He joined Newcastle-based sports marketing agency Nova International, where he was Director of Running. In 2004 he became the Athlete Services Manager for Yorkshire at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.^{[citation needed]}

• UK Athletics Hall of Fame Archived 28 June 2014 at the Wayback Machine
• UKA Young Athletes League^{[permanent dead link]}
• Peter Elliott: Rotherham Harriers & AC Roll of Honour
• Power of 10 Profile: Peter Elliott