The ITIL concept emerged in the 1980s, when the British government determined that the level of IT service quality provided to them was not sufficient. The Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), now called the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), was tasked with developing a framework for efficient and financially responsible use of IT resources within the British government and the private sector.

The earliest version of ITIL was actually originally called GITIM, Government Information Technology Infrastructure Management. Obviously this was very different to the current ITIL, but conceptually very similar, focusing around service support and delivery.

Large companies and government agencies in Europe adopted the framework very quickly in the early 1990s. ITIL was spreading far and, and was used in both government and non-government organizations. As it grew in popularity, both in the UK and across the world, IT itself changed and evolved, and so did ITIL.

In year 2000, The CCTA merged into the OGC, Office for Government Commerce and in the same year, Microsoft used ITIL as the basis to develop their proprietary Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF).

In 2001, version 2 of ITIL was released. The Service Support and Service Delivery books were redeveloped into more concise usable volumes. Over the following few years it became, by far, the most widely used IT service management best practice approach in the world.

In 2007 version 3 if ITIL was published. This adopted more of a lifecycle approach to service management, with greater emphasis on IT business integration.