Rachel Riley

Riley was born in Rochford. Her mother is Jewish, and she has stated that her "family came over in the pogroms" from Tsarist Russia. Riley was raised in the Thorpe Bay area of Southend-on-Sea and was educated at the independent Thorpe Hall School, and Southend High School for Girls, a grammar school, where she passed four A-Levels at grade A, after which she obtained a second-class degree in applied maths at Oriel College, Oxford.

During a university holiday, Riley considered a career in the financial sector and completed an internship at Deutsche Bank in the City of London. The experience put her off: she found the extreme behaviour of City traders wearing, and she disliked the early-morning train commute.