Robbert Van de Corput was born in 1988 in Breda, to Anneke and Cor van de Corput. At the age of four he began taking piano lessons and attended a music school. At the age of twelve, he produced his first songs in the field of electro, while performing as a hip-hop-DJ. At a young age, he was also active in various areas of Martial arts, including Judo.

On his performances, Hardwell is mostly seen with Sennheiser HD 25 II headphones. According to his Technical Rider, he works with a Pioneer DJM-800 Nexus or a DJM-900 Nexus mixer. In addition, his set-up contains four interconnected Pioneer CDJ 2000s.

Hardwell's style can be Classified in different sub genres of the electro-house music. He describes his starting style as influenced by the hip-hop underground scene. Between 2005 and 2006, he developed his style more commercially and over time his productions were increasingly based on a mix of Tech House and Dirty Dutch. Around the year 2008 his songs became slower and more commercial. In parallel, he experimented with elements from other genres. During that time, he came up already with build-ups, which were very similar to the big-room genre that had emerged years later. With the release of the Single "Feel So High" in 2009, he published a tech-house song that corresponded to the classical progressive house, which was dying out, especially at the time.

As hip-hop became an underground scene, Hardwell changed his genre to commercial electronic dance music. He started producing remixes and uploaded them on several platforms on the Internet. At the age of 14 he was offered a record deal with "Digidance" by Dutch Producer duo Klubbheads. Three weeks later he made a first official release with the two-disc-record "Bubbling Beats 1", whereupon he toured through the Netherlands and appeared in a number of dance clubs. His first official single "Play It Around" came out in 2006, and was played in German clubs. The single featured a combination of popular musical genres, as well as his own style.

At the end of 2007 Hardwell released the song "Never Knew Love", which was produced as a collaboration with Greatski; the song placed on the official German single-charts. Remixes for Gregor Salto’s and Chuckie’s "Toys Are" together with Dutch DJ and Producer R3hab as well as a mix of "You Do not Love Me" Sidney Samson and Skitzofrenix in 2008 remained at the top of the dance charts for weeks. Also in 2008 he produced a mash up of the tracks "Be" by Steve Angello and Laidback Luke and "Show Me Love" by Robin S..

Hardwell's bootleg with the title "Show Be Love", was played by many DJs and was praised by Laidback Luke and Steve Angello. In December 2008 the two producers released the track as an official cover version of "Show Me Love". A new remix by Hardwell was contained on the single.

In 2009, Tiësto invited Hardwell to one of his performances. They performed together on the stage, and this exposure in the Netherlands led to gigs on media events, including the "Dancevalley Festival", who’s official anthem was produced by him under the title of "Twilight Zone".

At the beginning of 2010 he joined the growing EDM genre and increased his talent in the area of production with singles like "Move It 2 The Drum" or "Asteroid". 2011 there appeared his first successful singles in the field of electro house with "Zero 76" and "Encoded". With "Spaceman", he co-founded the big-room scene in 2012 and established himself permanently in this subgenre. One year later his singles "Apollo" and "Never Say Goodbye", which gave him a place in the modern progressive house style. By 2015 his singles could only be Classified in these two areas.

In 2011, Hardwell was ranked in the "Top 100 DJs" category by DJ Mag for the first time and jumped on # 24 as the second-highest entry newcomer behind Skrillex. At the International Dance Music Awards 2012, he won the Best Break-Through DJ award.

Hardwell appeared as a headliner at several festivals, including Creamfields, Electric Zoo Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, Ultra Music Festival and Nature One. He also performed at Tomorrowland 2012, and released a related video which received tens of millions of clicks. In the fall of 2012 Hardwell reached the sixth place in the ranking list DJ Mag Top 100.

As the first result of his work the track "Eclipse", which opened each of his Livesets since November 2013 came up. Among fans, the ID track received the unofficial title "Titan", with the demands for its publication a running gag among his fans. In an interview with DJ Magazine, Hardwell promised to release his album in 2014. Many tracks from the new album were introduced by Hardwell at the Ultra Music Festival 2014 as well as the Tomorrowland Festival.

In December 2014 Hardwell announced the official tracklist and cover of the album. Collaborations with DJs like Tiësto or Headhunterz as well as Singers like Andreas Moe or Mr. Probz. Also, first previews of some of the songs, including the track "Follow Me", which was recorded in collaboration with R&B-singer Jason Derulo. At the same time, he announced his second world tour called "I Am Hardwell - United We Are" At the end of the year 2014, a minimix of the album unintentionally succeeded in the Internet and was virally distributed within minutes. In January 2015 the instrumental song "Eclipse" was released as a download single.

In the studio he works with a Roland A-49 MIDI Keyboard Controller White, Crane Song Avocet Remote II, and a Solid State Logic XLogic G Series Compressor. "reFX Nexus 2" is one of his favourite plugins. On 11 March 2015 he published a soundset for the synthesizer software "Sylenth1".

In 2016 he was heard as a voice actor in the animated film "The Secret Life of Pets". There he gave his voice to the little pug Mel; he himself is the owner of a pug named Jäger. Since 2014 he is in a relationship with the Dutch event manager Yanicke Agnes. They met in a bar in his hometown of Breda in 2013. His annual salary is estimated at 9.5 million euros.

On 20 October 2017, Hardwell launched his own cologne brand "ECLIPSE" in Amsterdam, whose release was originally announced through his Twitter page on 2 October 2017.

With the final release of "Take Us Down (Feeding Our Hunger)" with Dr. Phunk, the full EP was made available on 26 January 2018.

On his studio album "United We Are", he used a trance-characteristics of trance music for the first time for his track "Echo" as well as Deep House sounds for "Birds Fly". All in all he received very positive feedback for those productions. In addition, Chameleon followed a song in the Jungle-Terror style, which he continued with the W&W number "Get Down". For the first time since "Don’t Stop the Madness", "Hollywood" embodies a track corresponded to the Dirty-German-music in the spring of 2016 in parallel with a previously unpublished production with KURA from the section of the Trap music.