Rishi Sunak is currently the bookies favourite to take over from the outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The former chancellor is tipped to become the next Tory party leader with odds as low as 4/1 on Bet 365 bookmakers, narrowly beating Penny Mordaunt who stands at 11/2.
In joint third place are Sajid Javid, who resigned as health secretary on Tuesday, and Dominic Raab at 7/1. The next favourite to take the top spot is defence secretary Ben Wallace at 8/1.
Meanwhile, Bet 365 has Liz Truss sitting in joint sixth place alongside Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi at 10/1. Tom Tugendhat, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, closely follows at 12/1.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson agrees to quit as Prime Minister following a string of resignations
Mr Johnson has today agreed to tender his resignation as PM following days of intense pressure from his own MPs. His leadership has been hanging in the balance in recent days following a string of resignations from Cabinet ministers.
Pressure on the PM ramped up over his handling of the row involving his former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher. On Tuesday evening, Rishi Sunak dramatically quit as chancellor while Sajid Javid stepped down as health secretary.
Since then, dozens of ministers and parliamentary aides have also announced their departures as the number of MPs quitting government and party posts this week topped 50.
Despite the exodus and a delegation of Cabinet ministers telling him he should go on Wednesday, Mr Johnson remained defiant.
However, he has now given into the pressure and announced his departure from Number 10 after the new Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi told the PM he should “leave with dignity” and “go now”.
Rishi Sunak (4/1)
The 42-year-old is tipped as the favourite to take the top seat after his dramatic resignation on Tuesday.
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.
Penny Mordaunt (11/2)
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.
Sajid Javid (7/1)
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.
Dominic Raab (7/1)
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.
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 (10/1)
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.
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.
Nadhim Zahawi (10/1)
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."
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.
Jake Berry
The former minister who leads the Northern Research Group of Conservative MPs is also set to be considering a surprise bid to succeed Mr Johnson.
The Rossendale and Darwen MP is thought to be considering a leadership pitch centred on a "new deal for Britain" and keeping levelling up at the heart of the government's policy agenda.
The deal, according to an NRG source, is a plan to “unify every region, and ensure that the government is seen to be on the side of hardworking Britons".
A source close to Mr Berry said: “He appeals to people because he gets what matters. He is the only well known member of the party who has actually offered policies.”
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