Jarvis was first introduced to motorsport from an early age when his father Carl was competing in Formula Ford 1600. Keen to try it for himself, and at just six years old, Jarvis enjoyed his first motocross competition, albeit then two wheels not four.
At the age of eight, Jarvis made the transition to race karts. During his 10 years in karts, he achieved notable success in British and European events, as well as in World Karting as one of Tony Kart's Works driver.
Jarvis moved from European Karting when he was 18 to the highly competitive British single seater car championships racing in the Formula Ford category for two successful seasons before moving up to Formula Renault.
2005 proved to be an outstanding year of achievements for Jarvis when he became the 2005 Formula Renault UK Champion having gained 5 wins, 7 podiums, 4 pole positions and 3 ELF /Atol Driver of the Day Awards. He was also awarded BRDCRising Star status.
2006 saw Jarvis move up to the British F3 International Series, racing for the famous Carlin Motorsport team, run by Trevor Carlin. Jarvis was an instant success, and won two races, beating Bruno Senna (nephew of the late Ayrton) to 2nd in the standings. He went on to dominate the end of season Macau F3 Grand Prix in 2007, leading every lap and looking unchallenged throughout to take the biggest victory of his career.[5]
Jarvis did get his first chance at the Beijing International Streetcircuit in China, the third race weekend of the season. Through a problematic weekend, where problems with the track arose, Jarvis started the Sprint race in 8th, and finished in 7th in a race that saw little racing, following 7th-starting South Africa spinning, bringing out the Safety Car for a majority of the race. In the Feature race, Jarvis therefore started 7th. After controversially making his mandatory pitstop on the lap the Safety Car was deployed (A1GP rules state that cars cannot pit during Safety Car periods), Jarvis ended up running 8th for a majority of the race, an 8th that was actually a net 4th, given the cars in the first four places were yet to pit. After they did, Jarvis moved up to fourth, and looked to be heading for that position, until the leading duo, The Netherlands driver Jeroen Bleekemolen and Germany's Nico Hülkenberg both retired on the same lap, leaving Jarvis to finish second, behind Italy's Enrico Toccacelo.
Jarvis' next outing was at the Mexico round. This time Jarvis went one better, winning the Feature race for Great Britain's first ever A1 Grand Prix victory.
The following year, Team Phoenix retained Jarvis in the DTM, where he would partner Alexandre Prémat.[6] A much improved campaign followed, where two podiums, including second at Zandvoort, where he scored his first pole position in the category, elevated Jarvis to ninth overall.
Switching to Abt Sportsline for the 2010 season, five results inside the top six meant that Jarvis would finish ninth in the standings once again.[7]
In 2011, the Brit remained in the DTM at Abt Sportsline.[8] Despite taking a podium finish at Spielberg, Jarvis ended the season sitting tenth in the championship.
When Audi pulled out of WEC, he signed a contract to race in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup for Bentley during 2017. He also raced in the WEC under Jackie Chan DC Racing in LMP2. This led to him getting a class victory at Le Mans 24 Hours and second overall. They went on to score second in the championship standings.