Thermal barrier coating has important application value in many fields, but the mismatching between the physical properties of the substrate and the coating is the main reason restraining the improvement of its service performance and service life. Metal/ceramic gradient thermal barrier coating can effectively improve the interface failure caused by sudden changes in physical properties of the substrate and coating by gradually changing the internal structure and composition of the coating. The unique microstructure of metal/ceramic gradient thermal barrier coatings was introduced compared with double layer thermal barrier coatings and the reasons for its obvious performance advantages were briefly analyzed. The residual stress distribution, influencing factors and simulation model optimization of metal/ceramic gradient thermal barrier coatings were summarized later. The research progress of improving coating properties from three aspects: optimizing coating preparation process, improving spraying technology and strengthening coating design was described. Among them, optimizing the process parameters of ball mill and spraying, simulating the spraying process and improving the spraying technology and methods were to improve the physical properties of the coating by improving the quality of the coating. Changing the distribution form of coating composition, coating layer number and thickness was mainly to improve the thermal failure resistance of the coating by improving the residual stress distribution and level. With the continuous development of science and technology, it is proposed that further optimization of simulation model, improvement of spraying technology, innovation of coating design and improvement of mechanism research are the key research directions of plasma spraying metal/ceramic gradient thermal barrier coating in the future.