Oakey was born on 2 October 1955 in Hinckley, Leicestershire. Oakey is of Indian, Irish and Malaysian descent. His father worked for the General Post Office and moved jobs regularly: the family moved to Coventry when Oakey was a baby, to Leeds when he was five and to Birmingham when he was nine, attending Catherine-de-Barnes primary school, and gaining a scholarship to the independent Solihull School. He settled in Sheffield when he was fourteen.[5] He was educated at King Edward VII School in Sheffield. He left school at 18 without finishing his exams and worked in a number of casual jobs: in a university bookshop, and from 1975 as a porter at Thornbury Annex Hospital in Sheffield. He was married briefly to his girlfriend, whom he met at school, but the marriage did not last long and they were divorced in 1980.