Beth Rigby

Why organisations work with Beth Rigby

• Direct access to a current Westminster lens. As the sitting Political Editor of Sky News, she reads the UK political environment from inside the lobby, not from archive material.
• Named recognition from a credible body. Royal Television Society Political Journalist of the Year 2024 and inaugural Women in Journalism Woman of the Year 2024, both for her general election coverage.
• A track record of interviewing under pressure. She has questioned successive Prime Ministers on the record, including the exchange with Boris Johnson on Downing Street parties that the RTS shortlisted for Network Interview of the Year.
• On-stage interviewer and moderator craft. She hosts Beth Rigby Interviews and the Electoral Dysfunction podcast with Harriet Harman and Ruth Davidson, formats built on drawing out senior figures from across the political spectrum.
• Non-partisan reading of UK politics for commercial audiences. Useful in board meetings, leadership offsites and client events where the audience needs analysis, not opinion.

Biography highlights

• Political Editor, Sky News, since April 2019. First woman in the role.
• Royal Television Society Political Journalist of the Year, 2024.
• Inaugural Woman of the Year, Women in Journalism Awards, 2024.
• Co-host, Electoral Dysfunction (Sky News), with Harriet Harman and Ruth Davidson.
• Presenter, Beth Rigby Interviews (Sky News), since March 2022.
• Former Deputy Political Editor of the Financial Times; former Media Editor of The Times.

Biography

Westminster has rarely been more consequential for commercial decision-making, and rarely harder to read. Two elections in five years, a referendum, three Prime Ministers in 2022 alone, and a sustained period in which policy direction and political stability have moved week by week. Beth Rigby has covered all of it from inside the lobby as Political Editor of Sky News, the first woman to hold the role.

Her route into the job is unusually commercial for a Westminster journalist. She spent seventeen years at the Financial Times, covering hedge funds, retail and consumer industries before moving to political coverage as chief political correspondent and then deputy political editor. That grounding in business and markets reporting is why corporate audiences find her analysis useful. She reads UK politics through the same lens a board does.

In 2024 the Royal Television Society named her Political Journalist of the Year, citing her general election coverage and her interviewing of party leaders. The same year she won the inaugural Women in Journalism Woman of the Year award. She also hosted Sky’s televised town hall events with Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak during the 2024 campaign, a format that depends on holding senior politicians to specific answers in real time.

Alongside her on-air role she co-hosts the Sky News podcast Electoral Dysfunction with the former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman and the former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, a cross-party format aimed at explaining the mechanics of Westminster decisions rather than scoring them. That same dynamic is what makes her effective as an on-stage interviewer for senior audiences: she pushes for the substance, not the soundbite.

Key speaking topics

• UK politics and Westminster
• General elections and government formation
• Political risk and policy environment
• Geopolitics and UK foreign policy
• Media, broadcast journalism and political communication
• On-stage interviews with senior leaders and politicians
• Conference and event moderation

Ideal for

• Board offsites, leadership conferences and partner events where senior audiences need a current read on UK political risk.
• Client events that require an experienced interviewer for a politician, regulator or business leader.
• Industry conferences seeking a non-partisan moderator for political and policy panels.
• After-dinner or fireside-format events where the value is informed analysis of the current Westminster cycle.

Audience outcomes

• A clearer picture of the current Westminster dynamic and its implications for the next twelve to twenty-four months.
• A non-partisan read of UK policy direction across the main parties.
• Specific insight into the people, factions and decisions that shape government output.
• For interview and moderation briefs, a session that draws genuine substance from the guest rather than a rehearsed line.