University Challenge: Who Could Replace Jeremy Paxman as Presenter?

A fearless and award-winning journalist and broadcaster, Ahmed will narrate a University Challenge documentary airing later this month, and has admitted on Twitter that she’s been rehearsing to be a standby presenter this year. She added: ‘But no one from the BBC has spoken to me yet about taking over. I’ve always been happy to go through an honest fair process and be judged on my merits. I still am.’

Ahmed also announced she’d had encouragement from Paxman’s predecessor on the show, Bamber Gascoigne, and said: ‘The production team & I hope the BBC know exactly why I would love to present UC and why I think I’m the right person.’ Watch this space.

Kirsty Wark

Wark is Newsnight’s longest-running presenter, having joined the programme in 1993, and is also no stranger to University Challenge: she’s presented a Children in Need edition of the quiz for the last two years. She certainly shares Paxman’s formidable style, having interviewed the likes of Margaret Thatcher, and has also hosted other quiz shows including A Question of Genius and Have I Got News For You? 

Andrew Marr

Could the prestige of hosting University Challenge be enough to tempt Andrew Marr back to the BBC after he left the organisation at the end of 2021? After ending a 16-year run of his flagship Sunday morning news programme The Andrew Marr Show, he’s been hosting radio shows on LBC and Classic FM, so it might be a bit awkward to see him return to the beeb so soon, but his journalistic prowess would make him a solid choice for the role.