Sergei Skorokhodov was born in 1974 in Leningrad and trained at the Glinka Choir College in St Petersburg, graduating in 1993, before continuing at the Rimsky-Korsakov St Petersburg State Conservatory and attending masterclasses with Renata Scotto in Rome in 2004–2005. He joined the Mariinsky Academy of Young Opera Singers in 1999 and became a full Mariinsky Theatre soloist in 2007.

Skorokhodov has built an international career centered at the Mariinsky Theatre with an extensive repertoire spanning Lohengrin, Lensky in Eugene Onegin, the Pretender in Boris Godunov, Tannhäuser, and Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2010 and his La Scala debut in 2018–19, and was named Honored Artist of the Republic of Bashkortostan in 2018.