Edward Braddock was born in January 1695, probably in Perthshire, Scotland, into a family already closely connected with the British Army. His father, also named Edward Braddock, was an officer in the Coldstream Guards, one of the senior regiments of the royal household. The younger Braddock therefore grew up within the culture of a professional military establishment in which family patronage, personal reputation, and long service could determine advancement. Little reliable information survives about his mother, childhood household, or formal education, but his upbringing prepared him for a career in an army still shaped by the wars of William III and Queen Anne.

Braddock entered the Coldstream Guards as an ensign in 1710, while still in his teens. Service in the Guards placed him near the court and the center of British political life, but promotion was slow. He became a lieutenant in 1716, a captain in 1736, and a lieutenant colonel in 1745. These decades gave him extensive experience in drill, discipline, administration, and the management of regular troops. He developed a reputation for courage, personal force, and strict attention to duty, though contemporaries also described him as blunt, irascible, and sometimes insensitive to social or political considerations.

During the War of the Austrian Succession, Braddock served with British forces in the Low Countries. He participated in continental campaigning at a time when armies depended upon carefully maintained formations, artillery support, roads, and supply systems. In 1753 he became colonel of the 14th Regiment of Foot, and in 1754 he was promoted to major general. By then he was an experienced professional soldier, but he had never campaigned in North America. His selection to command the expedition against Fort Duquesne brought that conventional European experience into an unfamiliar frontier environment.