Dame Sarah Mullally

Dame Sarah Mullally has been installed as the new Archbishop of Canterbury this week. The former nurse from Woking is the first woman to occupy the role of de facto leader of the Church of England and leader of the global Anglican communion. In contrast to her Eton and Oxford educated predecessor Justin Welby, Sarah Mullally attended her local comprehensive before studying nursing at South Bank Polytechnic. By the age of thirty seven she was appointed Chief nursing officer for the NHS, a meteoric rise that brought with it a six-figure Whitehall salary and meetings with the prime minister. But five years later she threw it in to become a junior priest earning less than twenty thousand pounds a year. Her supporters see her as a safe pair of hands, a leader who will steady the ship after years of abuse scandals and bitter rows over sexuality and identity. But following her appointment some of the more conservative and evangelical Anglicans have said they will no longer recognise the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. So who is the new Archbishop and what will her tenure hold? Becky Milligan finds out.

You can listen to Dame Sarah Mullally online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Dame Sarah Mullally is an episode from Profile by BBC.

This episode is 14:41 long.

This episode was published on Mar 28, 2026.

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