Born in Warley Wood, Briggs became a fellow of Cambridge University in 1588 and was later made a lecturer (1592) and a professor (1596) of geometry at Gresham College, London.

He is remembered chiefly for the modifications he made to John Napier's logarithms, which were first published in 1614. Napier had produced these to base e (natural logarithms) but Briggs considerably improved their convenience of use by introducing the base 10 (common logarithms). He also introduced the modern method of long division. Briggs became Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford in 1619.