Katherine Parkinson (1977 or 1978) is an English actress. She appeared in the Channel 4 comedy series The IT Crowd as Jen Barber, for which she won BAFTA's British Academy Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance in 2014. In 2026, she won her second BAFTA TV Comedy Award for her role in Here We Go.
A University of Oxford graduate, Parkinson studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She has appeared on stage in the plays The Seagull (2007), Cock (2009), and Home, I'm Darling (2018), for which she was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Parkinson was also a main cast member of the series Doc Martin for three series (2005–2009). She co-starred in all three series of Humans, a science-fiction drama on AMC/Channel 4, which aired from 2015 until 2018. She has also appeared in the films The Boat That Rocked (2009) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018).
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Early life
Parkinson was born in Hounslow, West London, England, to an English mother, Janet Parkinson, a teacher, and Northern Irish father, the historian Alan Parkinson. She grew up in Tolworth and Surbiton, and attended Tiffin Girls' School before reading classics at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She then attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, although she left before graduating in order to star in the play The Age of Consent, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2001.
Career
From 2005 until 2009, Parkinson played Pauline Lamb, a doctor's receptionist and later phlebotomist, in series two to four of the long-running ITV comedy-drama series Doc Martin.
While working on Doc Martin, she was asked by a friend from London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, comic actor Chris O'Dowd, to audition for the comedy series The IT Crowd as the show was having trouble casting a female lead. In an interview with The Independent, Parkinson said the show's creator Graham Linehan originally wanted Jen to be "likeable", but she added: "I know what he wanted now – he wanted her to be the more normal person people could relate to." The IT Crowd premiered in 2006 and ran for four series, ending in 2014. Her character of IT Relations Manager shared the lions share of the storylines with her charge, Chris O'Dowd's Roy, a co-boffin with Moss (Richard Ayaode). Parkinson's performance was well received by critics and audiences, prompting her 2011 nomination for, and winning in 2014, the British Academy Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance.
In 2007 she appeared in a new production of Chekhov's The Seagull at London's Royal Court Theatre, alongside Kristin Scott Thomas and Mackenzie Crook, for which she received positive reviews.
She also contributed sketch characters to Katy Brand's ITV2 show Katy Brand's Big Ass Show (2007–2009), having been friends with Brand since their time at university. At the end of 2009, she appeared in the Olivier award winning play Cock at the Royal Court Theatre with Ben Whishaw and Andrew Scott.
She has performed several times on BBC Radio 4, including on Laura Solon: Talking and Not Talking; Mouth Trap, which she also co-wrote with Brand; and The Odd Half Hour. She also featured in television advertisements for Maltesers alongside fellow actress and comedian Amanda Abbington.
Parkinson played Sophie, one of the lead roles along with Mark Heap in BBC Four's three-part comedy series The Great Outdoors (2010). In 2010 and 2011, she appeared in two plays: Season's Greetings at the National Theatre; and as Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal at the Barbican Centre. That year, she appeared in The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, which premiered on BBC Two in 2011; in 2012 she made a guest appearance as Kitty Riley in "The Reichenbach Fall", the second series finale of the series Sherlock.
Personal life
Parkinson married actor Harry Peacock in 2009, and they have two daughters. Parkinson and Peacock first met in 2003, Parkinson relating, "I met my husband doing a workshop based on the book Heart of A Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov. He was the dog." Both starred in the TV series The Kennedys. Peacock has lupus. Parkinson is the daughter-in-law of the late Trevor Peacock. Speaking to the Elizabeth Day's podcast in 2026, Parkinson shared her younger aspirations of being an astronaut or working for MI5, going as far as taking the "MI5 exam".
