Born at Bristol, Hill was professor of physiology at Manchester University (1920–23) and then Jodrell Professor at University College, London, from 1923 to 1925 (and honorary professor from 1926 to 1951). He was Foulerton Research Professor of the Royal Society (1926–51), of which he was also for some years both secretary and foreign secretary. From 1940 until 1946 he was the Independent Conservative member of Parliament for Cambridge University and a member of the War Cabinet Scientific Advisory Committee.

Hill's major research was directed toward accurately recording the minute quantities of heat produced during muscle action. For this he used thermocouples, which recorded the smallest variations in heat generated after the muscle had completed its movement. He was able to show that oxygen was only consumed after muscular contraction, and not during it, indicating that molecular oxygen is required only for muscle recovery. In 1922 he shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine (with Otto Meyerhof) for this work on the physiology of muscular contraction.