Werner Sobek received undergraduate and graduate degrees in civil engineering and architecture studies from the University of Stuttgart. He was a Professor at the University of Hanover, and the Director of the Institute for Structural Design and Building Methods in the early 1990s. He founded his engineering consultancy in 1992 in Stuttgart.

Since 1994, he has been a professor at the University of Stuttgart. Sobek is also founder of the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design, and a member of the German Academy for Urban Development and Environmental Planning. In 2007, Sobek was a visiting professor at Harvard University.