Al-Khalili was born in Baghdad in 1962.[2] His father was an Iraqi Air Force engineer, and his English mother was a librarian.[3] Al-Khalili settled permanently in the UK in 1979.[2] After completing (and retaking) his A-levels over three years until 1982,[3] he studied physics at the University of Surrey and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1986. He stayed on at Surrey to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy degree in nuclear reaction theory, which he obtained in 1989, rather than accepting a job offer from the National Physical Laboratory.[11]