The School was founded in 1999 under PNDC Law 321(1992) which was amended in 2007 with an Act of Parliament (Act 745).

It however began its academic programmes in September, 2003 at the former Meat Marketing Company building in Bukere, a suburb of Bolgatanga.  The building was eventually acquired for the School which became its first permanent site.

The School operated from this site where it recruited its pioneer staff and also introduced its first academic programmes until in 2007, when it relocated to its new and main campus in Sumbrungu, on the Bolgatanga – Navrongo highway.

Over the years, the School has grown in terms of infrastructure, staff numbers and qualification, academic programmes as well as student numbers.

Currently, the School has two campuses namely, the Bukere and Sumbrungu campuses.

The old or Bukere campus houses the Evening School where both tertiary and non-tertiary programme are run while the Sumbrungu or main campus is where the Administration of the School is located together with all full-time academic programmes.

In April, 2020, the School was converted to a Technical University by the Technical Universities amendment Act 2020 (Act 1016).

The University now runs over twenty-five (25) different tertiary programmes of BTech, HND and Dipolma curricula in three (3) Schools namely; School of Business and Management Studies, School of Applied Science and Arts and School of Engineering.

Ecological Agriculture is the niche area of the University. This has made Bolgatanga Technical University to build industrial partnerships with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Savanah Agriculture Research Institute (SARI), and the Skills Development Fund (SDF) to improve agriculture in the savannah region of Ghana.

The University is at the climax of introducing master degree programmes in Ecological Agriculture and Agricultural Engineering.