Saiful was born in 1963 in Karachi, Pakistan to ethnically Bengali parents. The family moved to London in 1964 and he grew up in Crouch End, north London. There he went to Stationers Companys School, a state comprehensive. He received both a BSc degree in chemistry and a PhD (1988) from University College London, where he studied under Professor Richard Catlow. Subsequently, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Eastman Kodak laboratories in Rochester, New York, working on oxide superconductors.