Helen Skelton

On Saturday 22 October Skelton danced the Charleston with professional partner Gorka Marquez on 'Strictly Come Dancing' to the Blue Peter theme tune as a part of the celebrations of BBC's 100th Anniversary.

Skelton, jointly achieved top leader position on week 7 of 'Strictly Come Dancing' for her Jive, on Saturday 5 November.

She easily made it through week 8, by dancing the Salsa, on the 12 November competition evening, to reach Blackpool's heralded Extravaganza scheduled for 19 November 2022.

Skelton moved into voice-acting in 2023 when she was announced as the voice of a new character, farmer Annie Morris, in the children's animated series, Fireman Sam.

Helen Elizabeth Skelton (born 19 July 1983) is an English television presenter and actress.

Skelton was born on 19 July 1983, in Carlisle, Cumbria, England, and brought up on a dairy farm in the village of Kirkby Thore.

She attended its local Primary School, and then Appleby Grammar School, ultimately graduating from Cumbria Institute of the Arts, where she gained a BA degree in journalism.

During her time at college, she worked as an extra on Coronation Street and Cutting It.

Skelton has said that if she was not a broadcaster, she would be a teacher.

Her brother Gavin was a professional footballer and has also been a player-manager.

After briefly working in public relations, Skelton decided to concentrate on journalism.

She worked in the newsroom at CFM Radio, and was involved with various programmes at Border Television, before becoming a breakfast presenter on BBC Radio Cumbria in 2005, one of the youngest breakfast slot presenters on the BBC network at that time.

She was then a reporter and occasional presenter on children's news programme Newsround and its weekend sports-based version, Sportsround.

She co-presented the BBC children's programme Blue Peter from 2008 until 2013, and since 2014 has been a presenter on Countryfile.

She also co-presented two series of the BBC One programme Holiday Hit Squad alongside Angela Rippon and Joe Crowley.

She also presented the daytime series The Instant Gardener that ran for two series.

Skelton was revealed as a presenter on Blue Peter on 28 August 2008, replacing Zöe Salmon and becoming the 33rd presenter for the programme.

In a challenge for the series, Skelton took an uncredited role in the BBC production of Merlin.

She has occasionally presented segments of Countryfile since 2008, and also presented two series of Holiday Hit Squad in 2013/14 alongside Angela Rippon and Joe Crowley.

In December 2008, Skelton entered and won the Malta Open Dance Competition with a 16-year-old wheelchair user as her partner, defeating 100 other dancers.

In April 2009, Skelton became only the second woman ever to finish the 78 mi Namibian ultra marathon.

In December 2012, Skelton took part in a Christmas Special edition of the BBC One programme Strictly Come Dancing.

In August 2013, she announced her departure from the show; she was replaced by Radzi Chinyanganya.

Skelton worked on other projects during her time on Blue Peter, mainly correspondent-based; these included reporting from the Championships, Wimbledon.

After her departure from Blue Peter, Skelton became a presenter of live FA Women's Super League football matches for the BT Sport channel, as well as retaining her BBC reporter roles.

In 2014/15, she presented the London Marathon Highlights show on the BBC.

Since 2015, Skelton has co-presented daytime BBC One series The Instant Gardener alongside Danny Clarke.

Skelton's first novel, Amy Wild: Amazon Summer, was published in May 2015.

Skelton's autobiography, In My Stride, was published on 12 October 2023.

Skelton hosted a weekly slot on BBC Radio 5 Live on Sundays from 3pm to 6pm and acts as temporary co-host on BBC Radio 5 Live Drive Time with Tony Livesey.

From August 2022 to August 2023, Skelton replaced Laura Whitmore in presenting BBC Radio 5 Live's morning show, every Sunday between 10am-12pm.

Skelton left Radio 5 in August 2023.

She was replaced by Ore Oduba in 2016.

In early 2016, she presented Tonight: Kids V Career.

Skelton also hosted coverage of the 2016 European Swimming Championships with Mark Foster and Rebecca Adlington.

She worked for the BBC at the 2016 Summer Olympics presenting swimming coverage alongside Rebecca Adlington, Adrian Moorhouse, Andy Jameson and Mark Foster.

In October that year, Skelton guest presented five editions of Lorraine on ITV, plus further five in February 2017.

She also co-presented two editions of Walks with My Dog on More4 in 2017; in the same year, Skelton returned to host the swimming coverage on the BBC during the 2017 World Aquatics Championships with Adlington and Foster.

Skelton appeared in Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (series 8 episode 14) with her friend and ex-co-presenter Rebecca Adlington.

From 24 September 2022, Skelton competed in the twentieth series of Strictly Come Dancing, partnered with professional dancer Gorka Marquez.