Umar was born in Bhopal, his mother's hometown. He grew up there and did his B.Tech in electronics and telecommunication from Government Engineering College, Bhopal. He then went onto working with Vodafone for 8 years before pursuing his passion. Sharif started his career in 2004, modelling for editorials in magazines. His initial success came in the form of Grasim Mr India 2007 where he was the 2nd runner up for the event which opened the doors for ramp modelling and showcasing. He walked the ramp at Wills Fashion Week and Lakme Fashion Week along with continuing his work with editorials and print work in Delhi. With the intention of getting into television and films, Sharif moved to Mumbai where he eventually quit ramp modelling and started theatre. With a few fleeting appearances in movies here and there, his big break came in the form of Ye Hai India Meri Jaan with veteran director Saeed Mirza in 2013. In 2014, Umar signed his first feature film, Khamoshiyaan with Mukesh Bhatt's Vishesh Films. From then on, his journey continued with doing shows like Pyar ka Dard, Ishq Kills on Star Plus and episodic programmes like Savdhaan India (Life OK) and Gumrah (Channel V). He continued his association with theatre, when the play Rhinoceros that he was a part of, debuted at the famous Prithvi Festival. 2018 was the year when Umar bagged his first webseries Avrodh, and then went onto doing series like Kaafir with Dia Mirza on Zee5 & recently, Scam 1992 on Amazon Prime.