The adsorption of polymer and surfactant molecules onto colloidal particles or droplets in solution can be characterized non-destructively by scattering techniques. In a first part, the general framework of Dynamic Light Scattering, Small Angle Neutron and X-ray Scattering for the determination of the structure of adsorbed layers, and namely of the density profile, is presented. We then review recent studies of layers of the model polymer poly(ethylene oxide), as homopolymer or part of a block copolymer. In this field, scattering with contrast variation has been shown to be a powerful tool to obtain a detailed description of the layer structure. Adsorption of chemically more complex systems, including polyelectrolytes, polymer complexes, grafted chains and biomacromolecules are also discussed in this review, as well as surfactant adsorption.