José graduated in Architecture in the first class of the newly created course at the Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. The last year of his degree was completed in Barcelona, at ETSAB-UPC, under the Erasmus Program.

In January 2004 he emigrated to Macau to work in the studio of his teacher Manuel Vicente, where he stayed until December 2006. At this point he moved to Hong Kong to work for a very large architectural firm with many projects in Macau – Aedas. In February 2008, Aedas invited José to join the Marina Bay Sands project team in Singapore. In 2021, José co-founded the studio of 10 Design in Singapore, where he remains today.

In his time in Singapore, José was the Design and Project Leader of Skypark until the project opened in August 2010 and has been the leader of teams and multiple projects in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia), India and the Middle East (Oman, United Arab Emirates, Egypt) among others, occasionally in China. Several projects have won awards and been published in various architecture, urban planning and landscape magazines and books.

During his time in Singapore, José was one of the founders of CEPS (Portuguese Business Council of Singapore in 2012), founded and opened the first Portuguese restaurant in Singapore (“Boca” in 2015), and was one of the founders of the Singapore Portuguese Association, where he is currently a board member.

José Cláudio Silva has been a member of the Portuguese Diaspora Council since October 2023.