Kyoko Shikata was born in Kobe. While a student at the Tokyo Natnional University of Fine Arts and Music, she participated in the 47th NHK Mainichi Music Competition. As a member of the Tokyo Brahms Quartet, she participated in the 1st Kirishima International Music Festival and received the Kirishima International Music Festival Award. She also took 2nd place and received the Hideo Saito Award in the 15th Min-on Chamber Music Competition. Kyoko Shikata studied at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, with Wolfgang Marschner, for whom she also worked as an assistant. In 1982 she took 1st place in the Spohr International Violin Competition.

Since 1990, Kyoko Shikata has served as concertmistress of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, which with she has recorded the Bartok Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2. She has appeared as a soloist with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Sofia Philharmonic and Slovak Philharmonic Orchestras; and the NHK Symphony, Sapporo Symphony, and Kyoto Symphony Orchestras. She received high praise for her January 1998 recital in Cologne of the complete unaccompanied violin sonatas of Ysaÿe, of which she had previously released a CD.

Kyoko Shikata has participated in the Okhotsk Music Festival in Monbetsu, the Kirishima International Music Festival, and the Saito Memorial Festival, and has given seminars and concerts with outstanding musicians both in Japan and abroad. She also serves as the music director for the Affinis Summer Music Festival. Since October 2003 she has held the post of assistant professor at the Kyoto City University of Arts. Since 2005, Kyoko Shikata has served as concertmistress of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra; and in September 2009 she assumed the post of solo-concertmistress of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. She has won a Hyogo laureate culture prize in 2009.