Wright killed Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls before dumping their bodies around Ipswich.
Mr Justice Gross, sitting at Ipswich Crown Court, ordered 49-year-old Wright to serve the maximum sentence.
He said: "This was a targeted campaign of murder. It is right you should spend your whole life in prison."
Wright sat emotionless as prosecutors asked the judge to ensure he is never allowed out of jail.
The victims were working as prostitutes when they were murdered and Mr Justice Gross said Wright had targeted vulnerable women.
He said: "Drugs and prostitution meant they were at risk. But neither drugs nor prostitution killed them. You did.
Killer steeped in vice
Lucky girl who survived
Ipswich reacts to murders
"You killed them, stripped them and left them... why you did it may never be known."
The judge said the case met the legal requirements for a whole life sentence because the murders involved a "substantial degree of pre-meditation and planning".
Wright, of Ipswich, said during his trial that he had had sex with four of the five women but denied killing them.
The naked bodies of the women, aged between 19 and 29, were found over a 10-day period in December 2006.
The jury of nine men and three women heard Wright had "systematically selected and murdered" his victims over a six-and-a-half-week period.
Five of the jurors turned up at court to see the sentence handed down.
Two of the women, 24-year-old Anneli Alderton, who was from Essex, and 29-year-old Annette Nicholls, were found with their arms outstretched in what was described in court as a "cruciform pose".
Analysis by forensic science experts revealed his DNA on three of the women and fibres linking him to all five.
His DNA was then matched with a profile held on the national database which had been taken in 2001 for an £80 theft conviction for stealing from a Felixstowe pub.
Wright was arrested less than three weeks after the discovery of the first body, that of 25-year-old Gemma Adams, in a stream at Hintlesham.
Drugs and prostitution meant they were at risk. But neither drugs nor prostitution killed them. You did
Mr Justice Gross
Victims' families' reaction
Det Ch Supt Stewart Gull, who led the investigation, said Wright's "appalling crimes" had left a community, a county and a nation "in a state of profound shock".
Wright's defence team said they would be considering whether there were grounds for an appeal, but said this was routine in all criminal cases.
Police will now check outstanding cases in the region to see whether there could be links to Wright.
In 1992, Natalie Pearman, 16, was found strangled after disappearing from the red-light area of Norwich.
A year later Mandy Duncan, 26, of Woodbridge, Suffolk, vanished while working as a prostitute in Ipswich.
In 2000, Kellie Pratt, 29, disappeared from the red-light area of Norwich and in 2002 Michelle Bettles, 22, was found strangled three days after disappearing from the red-light area of Norwich.
Wright also worked on the QE2 in the 1980s, along with missing estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, 25.
She disappeared after leaving her offices in Fulham, west London, in 1986 and her body has never been found.
The Metropolitan Police refused to be drawn on any possible links to Wright saying: "We are not prepared to discuss who we may or may not wish to interview in connection with any on-going investigation."
