Vladimir Pavlovich Biryukov was born on July 10, 1888, in the family of a secretary-accountant of a loan and savings association in the village of Pershinskoye, which is now the administrative center of the Pershinsky rural council in the Dalmatovsky district of the Kurgan region. He had a brother, Arkady Pavlovich Biryukov.

Vladimir studied at the Perm Theological Seminary but did not become a priest. In 1910, he established the first rural museum in the Trans-Urals in the village of Pershinskoye. In 1912, he graduated from the Kazan Veterinary Institute, and after that, he received the title of scientist-archaeologist and became a full member of the Moscow Archaeological Institute. He served in the army and studied for two years at the Moscow Agricultural Institute.

On December 26, 1917, Biryukov founded a scientific repository in Shadrinsk, which is now known as the V. P. Biryukov Shadrinsk Local History Museum and the State Archive in Shadrinsk. In 1919, being mobilized by Kolchak's army as a veterinarian, he moved to Tomsk. From the end of 1919, he was a free listener at the Faculty of History and Philology of Tomsk University, where he received a silver medal for his work on local dialects. In 1920, he was elected head of the antiquities museum at Perm University.

Until 1931, he continued to lead the Shadrinsk scientific repository. In 1923, he was elected a corresponding member and then a full member of the Central Bureau of Local Studies at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In September 1925, he participated in the celebrations dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and was elected a member of the Presidium of the ceremonial meeting at the Bolshoi Theatre.

In the early 1920s, the Academy of Sciences resumed the publication of the "Dictionary of the Russian Language," and until 1933, Biryukov actively participated in its preparation, sending in additions. His name is mentioned in the preface to 14 issues of the dictionary.

From 1931 to 1938, he worked in Sverdlovsk at the regional bureau of local studies. Biryukov maintained relationships and correspondence with fellow countrymen, such as sculptor I. D. Shadr and bibliographer N. V. Zdobnov.

In the 1940s and 1950s, he lived in Shadrinsk, where he taught folklore at the Shadrinsk Pedagogical Institute and the Chelyabinsk Pedagogical Institute. On February 10, 1955, he was accepted into the Union of Writers of the USSR.

In 1962, Biryukov moved his collection of documents from Shadrinsk to Sverdlovsk. In 1964, by the decision of the Sverdlovsk Regional Executive Committee, the Ural Archive of Literature and Art was organized from his collection, where he became the director on a voluntary basis. It is now one of the funds of the State Archive of the Sverdlovsk Region.

Vladimir Pavlovich Biryukov passed away on June 18, 1971, in Sverdlovsk and was buried at the Nizhne-Isetsky Cemetery.