Grandson of composer Ryoichi Hattori and son of composer Katsuhisa Hattori, Takayuki Hattori went to school to learn music abroad in France at the Paris Conservatory. He moved back to Japan in 1988 and launched into a musical career pretty quickly although starting with smaller projects. This included working as a music arranger for singer Masashi Sada and on video game reorchestrating, such as Symphonic Suite Final Fantasy in 1989 and Game Music Concert: The Best Selection in 1991.

In 1994, Hattori made his big break, selected to compose music for the TV show I Don't Have Any Money! and the film Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994). This launched a prolific career both working on TV projects while also being frequently selected to work on Toho movies. What likely cemented him as a top choice, though, was winning a Japanese Academy Award after only a few years composing for film, which was for Abduction (1997).

As a whole, Hattori's body of work tends to be diverse for its genres, ranging from comedies like Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald (1997) to the documentary Japan's Wildlife: The Untold Story (2012). He has also been associated with a number of franchises, most notably Godzilla as he worked on Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999) and the anime trilogy starting with Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017). He has also composed for a number of entries in the long running Doraemon series, including Doraemon: Nobita's Sky Utopia (2023). Outside of film, Hattori also did music for the 2020 Summer Olympics that took place in Tokyo belatedly in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.