Nitya Menon is born in a Malayali family settled in Bangalore. She studied journalism at the Manipal Institute of Communication. But being an idealist, she could not withstand bossism and corruption prevailing in the profession and left it to take up cinematography course at the FTI, Pune. During the entrance exam there, she met Nandini Reddy who chased and brainwashed her to become an actress.

Nithya Menen's first filmy appearance is as a child artist in an English film, The Monkey Who Knew Too Much (1998). She was just 10 years old then and she played the younger sister to Tabu's character in the movie.

In 2008, she finally appeared in a lead role in an off-beat film Aakasha Gopuram, directed by National Film Award-winning director K. P. Kumaran in which she was paired with Malayali Superstar, Mohanlal. It was told that Mohanlal saw her on a Magazine cover and brought her on board for the movie. Her next venture is Kannada movie, Josh in which she played a supporting role. She was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category at the 57th Filmfare Awards South.

The year, 2011 is a major turnaround in her career. She was paired up opposite Nani in Ala Modhalaindhi directed by Nandini Reddy and she was an instant hit both with the audience and critics. She also sang two songs in the movie. She even bagged the Nandi award for Best Actress for her performance. Later on she acted in movies like Santosh Sivan’s Urumi, ad-filmmaker Jayendra's bilingual film 180 and Gautam Menon’s production, Sega/Veppam but none of them succeed at the box office.

In 2012, she is back on the track of success with Ishq starring Nitin Reddy. She also acted in Malayali movie Karmayogi, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. She also sung and chorographed one of the songs in Kannada film Aidondla Aidu. In the same year, she was seen in two Malayalam projects, T. K. Rajeev Kumar's Thalsamayam Oru Penkutty and Ustad Hotel directed by Anwar Rasheed.

In 2013, she acted films like Okkadine, Jabardasth (Cameo) and Gunde Jaari Gallanthayyinde. While Gunde Jaari Gallanthayyindhe is a huge hit, the other two bombed miserably. She sang one each song in all the three films and all of them are chart-busters.