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Rachel Riley

television presenter

Rachel Riley

British television presenter

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Rachel Riley

British television presenter

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Not who you're looking for? Others named Rachel Riley: American DOGE official and 28th chief of naval research · Screen figure

Rachel Annabelle Riley is an English television presenter. A mathematics graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, she joined the Channel 4 game show Countdown in January 2009 and also co-presents its comedy spin-off, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Occupation: television presenter, science communicator
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Born: January 11, 1986

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Pasha Kovalevspouse

Joe Lycett: That's the Way, A-Ha, A-Ha, Joe Lycettknown for Countdownknown for 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdownknown for Jurassic Attackknown for Oriel Collegeeducated at Southend High School for Girlseducated at United Kingdomcountry of citizenship

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Rachel Annabelle Riley (born 11 January 1986) is an English television presenter. A mathematics graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, she joined the Channel 4 game show Countdown in January 2009 and also co-presents its comedy spin-off, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Riley has co-presented The Gadget Show (2013–2014), It's Not Rocket Science (2016), and football programmes for Sky Sports. She competed in the eleventh series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2013. Her work promoting mathematics includes school visits and the book At Sixes and Sevens: How to Understand Numbers and Make Maths Easy (2021).

Riley is an anti-racism campaigner whose work includes Holocaust education and raising awareness of antisemitism. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to Holocaust education and antisemitism awareness. In 2025, she received the Freedom of the City of London for her work in these fields.

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Rachel Annabelle Riley is an English television presenter. A mathematics graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, she joined the Channel 4 game show Countdown in January 2009 and also co-presents its comedy spin-off, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Occupation: television presenter, science communicator
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Born: January 11, 1986

Family

Pasha Kovalevspouse

Joe Lycett: That's the Way, A-Ha, A-Ha, Joe Lycettknown for Countdownknown for 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdownknown for Jurassic Attackknown for Oriel Collegeeducated at Southend High School for Girlseducated at United Kingdomcountry of citizenship

Article

Rachel Annabelle Riley (born 11 January 1986) is an English television presenter. A mathematics graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, she joined the Channel 4 game show Countdown in January 2009 and also co-presents its comedy spin-off, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Riley has co-presented The Gadget Show (2013–2014), It's Not Rocket Science (2016), and football programmes for Sky Sports. She competed in the eleventh series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2013. Her work promoting mathematics includes school visits and the book At Sixes and Sevens: How to Understand Numbers and Make Maths Easy (2021).

Riley is an anti-racism campaigner whose work includes Holocaust education and raising awareness of antisemitism. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to Holocaust education and antisemitism awareness. In 2025, she received the Freedom of the City of London for her work in these fields.

Contents

4Campaigning and public activity

Early life and education

Riley was born in Rochford, Essex, and grew up in Thorpe Bay, Southend-on-Sea. Her mother is Jewish, and Riley has described her maternal family's migration from Tsarist Russia during the pogroms.

She attended Thorpe Hall School and Southend High School for Girls. She achieved three A grades at A-level and an AS-level before studying mathematics at Oriel College, Oxford, where she graduated with a second-class degree.

While at university, Riley completed an internship at Deutsche Bank in the City of London. She subsequently decided against pursuing a career in finance.

Television career

Countdown

Riley joined Countdown in January 2009, succeeding Carol Vorderman. Her appointment was announced alongside that of Jeff Stelling, who replaced Des O'Connor as the programme's main presenter. Riley's role involves displaying the letter and number selections and providing solutions to the numbers rounds.

Encouraged by her mother, Riley applied because of her interest in the programme's numbers rounds. She was selected from approximately 1,000 applicants despite having no previous television presenting experience.

From 2012, Riley also appeared in the same role on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, the comedy spin-off hosted by Jimmy Carr.

Other presenting work

From 2013 to 2014, Riley co-presented The Gadget Show on Channel 5 with Jason Bradbury. She appeared in three series before being succeeded by Amy Williams.

In 2016, she co-presented the six-part ITV science entertainment series It's Not Rocket Science with Ben Miller and Romesh Ranganathan.

Later that year, Riley joined Sky Sports, presenting Friday Night Football with Stelling and Fantasy Football Club with Max Rushden and Paul Merson. She left Friday Night Football in 2017.

Strictly Come Dancing

In 2013, Riley competed in the eleventh series of Strictly Come Dancing, partnered with professional dancer Pasha Kovalev. They were eliminated in the sixth week following a dance-off against Abbey Clancy and Aljaž Škorjanec. Riley later described experiencing stage fright during the series and receiving cognitive behavioural therapy to help manage it.

Mathematics and other work

Riley has visited schools to encourage interest in mathematics and science. She has also supported National Numeracy initiatives and encouraged girls to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In October 2021, she published At Sixes and Sevens: How to Understand Numbers and Make Maths Easy.

Riley is a global ambassador and UK board member of Grassroot Soccer, a charity that uses football in adolescent health programmes.

In 2019, her promotion of Shell's energy initiatives drew criticism from environmental campaigners, who described the campaign as greenwashing.

Campaigning and public activity

In 2018, Riley began publicly criticising the Labour Party's handling of antisemitism allegations under Jeremy Corbyn. She said that posters describing Israel as a racist endeavour had prompted her to speak out. The posters appeared during the dispute over Labour's adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition lists denying Jewish self-determination, including the claim that Israel's existence is a "racist endeavor", among its examples of antisemitism, to be assessed in their overall context. In September that year, she said she had no party allegiance.

In February 2019, The Times reported that she had attended discussions about establishing a centrist party separate from Labour. She also supported the Stop Funding Fake News campaign.

Riley was among the participants in a 2022 Center for Countering Digital Hate study of abusive Instagram messages sent to high-profile women. The organisation reported that Instagram had failed to act on 90% of the abusive messages it reported.

After the 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings, and before the facts of the incident emerged, Riley linked the attack to calls to "global intifada", stating: "If you want to know what 'globalise the intifada' looks like, see the Sydney mall", a post that, according to The Independent, was accused of "perpetuating Islamophobia". Riley deleted her post and said she was "sorry if this message was misunderstood", and stated that her comments were not meant to imply a link to Islamic extremism. (The perpetrator was later identified as Joel Cauchi, a 40-year-old mentally ill man from Toowoomba.) Channel 4 stated: "We have reminded Rachel of her obligations as a contributor to Channel 4 programming."

Legal proceedings

In February 2019, Riley and Tracy-Ann Oberman announced plans for legal action over social-media posts they regarded as defamatory or harassing. In July 2020, they withdrew a joint libel claim against a person who had shared a link to an article accusing them of harassing a teenage Labour supporter, and agreed to contribute to the defendant's legal costs.

In December 2021, Riley was awarded £10,000 in libel damages against Laura Murray, a former aide to Corbyn, over a tweet alleging that Riley had said Corbyn deserved to be violently attacked. The judge found in Riley's favour while also finding an element of provocation in her original post.

In November 2022, Riley was awarded £50,000 in libel damages against blogger Michael Sivier over an article alleging that she had supported and encouraged online abuse of a teenager. The High Court rejected his public-interest defence and ordered him to remove the article and not repeat the allegations.

Personal life

Riley married Jamie Gilbert, whom she had met at Oxford, in August 2012. Their separation was announced in November 2013. She then began a relationship with Kovalev, her former Strictly Come Dancing partner, and they married in Las Vegas in June 2019.

The couple have two daughters, born in December 2019 and November 2021.

Riley is Jewish. She and Kovalev adopted a vegan diet in 2018.

She supports Manchester United. The club was her specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind in 2012, when she finished joint second.

Honours

Riley was appointed an MBE in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to Holocaust education and antisemitism awareness. In October 2025, she received the Freedom of the City of London in recognition of her Holocaust education and antisemitism campaigning work.

Filmography

Article from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), where it is maintained by volunteer editors.

Related journals

Family

Pasha Kovalev

Connected

Joe Lycett: That's the Way, A-Ha, A-Ha, Joe Lycett Countdown 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown Jurassic Attack Oriel College Southend High School for Girls United Kingdom

Not who you're looking for? Others named Rachel Riley: American DOGE official and 28th chief of naval research · Screen figure

🎬 Filmography

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8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown

2013 · as Self