Penny Mordaunt is currently the odds-on favourite at the bookies to take over from doomed Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The trade minister is tipped to become the next Tory party leader with odds as low as 4/1 on Coral bookmakers, narrowly beating Rishi Sunak who stands at 5/1.
In joint third place is Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss at 8/1.
The next favourite to take the top spot is Nadhim Zahawi, who last night replaced Mr Sunak as Chancellor after he and health secretary Sajid Javid sensationally quit, sparking a wave of Tory resignations and plunging Johnson's government into turmoil.
Meanwhile, Coral has Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid sitting comfortably in fifth place.
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, closely follows the pair at 12/1, trailed by Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab.
The odds of there being a general election this year have also been slashed from 16-1 to 7-1 in the wake of the damaging Cabinet resignations.
Coral's John Hill said: “As much as Boris will try to paper over the cracks over the next few days, the PM looks in big trouble now.
"We have pulled the plug on our betting on his future, and punters are now concentrating on who will replace him."
Mr Javid resigned as Health Secretary and Mr Sunak quit his Chancellor role on Tuesday as Mr Johnson attempted to make a grovelling apology over the Chris Pincher scandal.
As his premiership hangs by a thread, speculation is mounting that a leadership challenge could be on the cards within days as a flurry of Tory MPs who previously backed the PM called for him to stand down.
So, who is in line to replace the embattled Prime Minister? Here is a list of the top contenders.
Penny Mordaunt (4/1)
Another frontrunner with the bookies, Ms Mordaunt made waves in 2019 as the UK's first female defence secretary before being fired by Mr Johnson shortly after becoming PM.
The Royal Navy reservist has trodden a diplomatic path, supporting Brexit while opposing bids to oust Theresa May in 2018.
But she also has a sense of humour - she took part in a reality TV show Splash and used the word “cock” six times in a Commons debate as part of a game with fellow reservists.
Born to an ex-paratrooper, named after a Navy ship and related to both Angela Lansbury and Labour's first chancellor Philip Snowden, she was educated at a Catholic school, a drama school and Reading University.
Rishi Sunak (5/1)
The 42-year-old is tipped as one of the favourites to take the top seat after his dramatic resignation yesterday.
Nicknamed 'Dishy Rishi' by his admirers, the ex-Chancellor shot up the rankings since becoming an MP seven years ago. He was long seen as the frontrunner to succeed Boris Johnson as Britain's first PM of Asian descent.
But the former investment firm founder had previously slipped down the rankings after a series of "out-of-touch" gaffes amid the cost of living crisis.
It emerged his wife Askhata Murty, with whom he's 222nd on the Sunday Times Rich List with a combined £730m fortune, was paying £30,000 a year to use her non-dom status not to pay UK tax on her overseas income. She later U-turned.
Despite his image, some moderate Tories still believed he was the best candidate. But it would be difficult for him to run when he, too, has been fined by police over Partygate.
Ben Wallace (8/1)
The Defence Secretary has won admirers in Westminster for his straight-talking and straightforward approach, particularly among Tory MPs who pressed for the UK to increase its defence spending.
But his blunt manner could also cost him some advancement, such as in 2019 when No10 slapped him down for being caught on camera making remarks about Boris Johnson's prorogation of parliament.
The privately-schooled son of a soldier attended Sandhurst and served in Germany, Cyprus, Belize and Northern Ireland before entering politics in the early 2000s, including as an aide to Ken Clarke.
He has consistently supported Mr Johnson, but has pressed the case for increased defence spending.
Liz Truss (8/1)
The Foreign Secretary has made little secret of her leadership ambitions, with a series of high-profile interventions and photo opportunities in which she appeared to be channeling late PM Margaret Thatcher.
She has never confirmed she is running for leadership but it's a running joke in Westminster. She poses for carefully-choreographed social media posts, including jogging on the Brooklyn Bridge and posing in a tank.
The 46-year-old became an MP in 2010 after working at Shell, Cable and Wireless, and then as deputy director of the Reform think tank.
She has had to defend Tory tax rises but spoke out against a windfall tax on oil giants and insists she is a low-tax Tory.
Nadhim Zahawi (9/1)
The 55-year-old had a remarkable life story before being named Vaccines Minister during Covid, then Education Secretary.
His Kurdish parents fled Baghdad when he was nine and he was educated at a West London comprehensive, then a private school before attending UCL and building up a lucrative business career.
He co-founded the leading pollster YouGov before being elected to Parliament in 2010, and had a lucrative career with the oil industry, being paid more than £1,000 an hour by Gulf Keystone Petroleum before he took a ministerial job.
Last year the Mirror disclosed he, his wife and their companies had built a £100m property portfolio. In 2013 he promised to repay a bill for power at his stables which was funded by taxpayers.
Asked if he will run for leader when there is a vacancy, he said: "There is no vacancy."
Jeremy Hunt (10/1)
The frontrunner, 55, was the last candidate standing against Boris Johnson in 2019. This time he spent months in a "will he, won't he" tussle before coming out on the day of the vote.
He said "I will be voting for change" because otherwise the Tories "are set to lose the next general election". He added: "We are not giving the British people the leadership they deserve. We are not offering the integrity, competence and vision necessary."
Britain's longest-serving Health Secretary sparked fury on the left for pushing through junior doctor contracts that were deemed dangerous. But in Tory eyes he is near the moderate, internationalist centre of the party, serving in a string of top roles, backing Remain and now chairing the Health Committee.
An MP since 2005, he was educated at £41,000-a-year public school Charterhouse and is a millionaire after founding the educational firm Hotcourses in 1990.
Sajid Javid (10/1)
The Health Secretary was one of 10 leadership challengers in 2019. Boris Johnson made him Chancellor but the relationship quickly soured, with Mr Javid resigning in February 2020 after he was told to fire his advisers.
He was on the back benches for most of the pandemic before returning to the Cabinet as Health Secretary.
The 52-year-old MP since 2010 rose through the ranks after being close to ex-Chancellor George Osborne. His father, Abdul, was a bus driver who arrived in the country in 1961 with £1 in his pocket.
He went to a comprehensive school in Bristol before studying economics and politics at Exeter University, later carving out a high-flying career in finance, working as a managing director at Deutsche Bank
Tom Tugendhat (12/1)
The Tory chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, 48, has only been an MP for seven years but was the first to confirm he’d throw his hat in the ring.
The centre-right former Remainer has been a vocal critic of Boris Johnson's foreign policy - such as on Russian sanctions and the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan - and said recently he had made his position "clear to those who need to hear it".
The privately-educated son of a High Court judge has dual citizenship with his France where his wife is a judge, speaks Arabic, and voted remain in the 2016 Brexit debate. His family own a forest in Essone, near Versailles.
He served in Iraq as an intelligence officer with the Royal Marines and ran the central region - Baghdad and the surrounding cities - in 2003. Later he became advisor to the governor of Afghanistan's Helmand Province.
Michael Gove (25/1)
Boris Johnson's ally turned rival has held a string of cabinet posts and is currently overseeing the PM's flagship levelling up agenda.
But the PM's allies branded him an "amazing s***" in 2016 when he detonated Mr Johnson's leadership bid after the Brexit vote. After saying he was unlikely to, he then stood again in 2019 before losing out at the final ballot to Jeremy Hunt and Mr Johnson.
The 54-year-old's personal life came under the spotlight last year when he announced his divorce from columnist wife Sarah Vine, and was later spotted throwing shapes in an Aberdeen nightclub. Despite this he's broadly seen as a slick - if slippery - messenger for whichever government rules the day.
Could he make it a third run at the top job? Allies insist he's said he wouldn't run again a few times, but that hasn't stopped him before.
Dominic Raab (28/1)
The Deputy Prime Minister, 48, made it to the third round of the 2019 leadership contest after rising through the ranks as a Brexiteer.
The grammar school-educated former human rights lawyer, a karate black belt, became an MP in a Lib Dem target seat in 2010 and previously served as Brexit Secretary and Justice Secretary.
He gained praise for deputising for Mr Johnson when the PM was hospitalised with Covid in 2020. But he was moved from being Foreign Secretary after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, while he holidayed in Crete insisting the "sea was closed".
While he could yet head the government again, it might only be as a stand-in if a temporary PM is needed. Since his 2019 run, other right-wingers have come to the fore as potential candidates and he'd face stiff competition.
