Who are the favourites to be the next Tory leader? Latest odds

Shadow science minister Andrew Griffith has said it is likely to take “months” before the Conservatives find a new leader.

When asked how long it will take to find a replacement for Rishi Sunak, Griffith told Sky News on Tuesday: “Probably months, not years.

“I think we’ve got the ability to take that time. It’s also really important to me that we involve the membership of the Conservative Party properly.

“With only 121 Conservative MPs, most party members are not represented at the moment by their own MP and so it’s important that we have a very inclusive process that does speak to all of the membership.”

Following the Tories' wipeout in last week's election, Sunak said he would quit as party leader once arrangements were in place to choose his successor.

With jockeying for the job already in full swing, Yahoo News UK looks at the contenders according to odds provided by Oddschecker.

Kemi Badenoch (2/1)

Kemi Badenoch was business secretary in Sunak's government.

Popular with the Tory grassroots, she ran for the party leadership in 2022 and didn't rule out another tilt at the top job during the general election campaign, saying “we will talk about leadership things after an election”.

Badenoch was also women and equalities minister and vowed to change the Equality Act to rewrite the definition of sex and allow organisations to bar transgender women from single-sex spaces.

She was recently embroiled in a row with actor David Tennant, who said at the British LGBT Awards: “Until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist any more – I don’t wish ill of her, I just wish her to shut up…” Badenoch accused him of being a “rich, lefty, white male celebrity so blinded by ideology”.

Seat: Badenoch won her North West Essex seat with 19,360 votes to the Labour candidate's 16,750.

• Read more: Who is Kemi Badenoch? Tory minister will 'not shut up' in trans rights row with David Tennant (Evening Standard)

Robert Jenrick (3/1)

Speaking three days after the election, Robert Jenrick declined to say if he would seek to replace Sunak.

But since resigning as immigration minister in December last year, when he said Sunak's Rwanda policy did “not go far enough”, Jenrick has reinvented himself as an immigration hardliner in an apparent attempt to appeal to right-leaning Tory members. He said the UK can learn from Donald Trump.

Distancing himself from the government he served in, Jenrick also used an article in The Sunday Times to say: "The reason for this near-existential result was not that we were too left-wing or too right-wing. Nor because we had this slogan not that slogan. No, the fundamental reason we lost is because we failed to deliver what we promised for the British people."

Seat: Jenrick held his seat in Newark with 20,968 votes to the Labour candidate's 17,396.

• Read more: Robert Jenrick resigns as immigration minister over government's Rwanda plan (Sky News)

Tom Tugendhat (4/1)

Tom Tugendhat was appointed security minister in September 2022 by Liz Truss.

Like Badenoch, he stood for the party leadership that year and has not ruled out another run.

A Remainer in 2016, Tugendhat is seen as one of the more moderate leadership contenders.

Seat: Tugendhat won his Tonbridge seat with 20,517 votes to the Labour candidate's 9,351: one of the bigger majorities won by a Tory in the election.

• Read more: On the campaign trail with Tom Tugendhat – and my dog (The Telegraph)

Dame Priti Patel (7/1)

Dame Priti Patel served as home secretary in Boris Johnson’s cabinet between 2019 and 2022.

Also popular with the Tory grassroots, Patel is a hardliner on immigration. In April 2022 she introduced the government’s scheme to send small boat asylum seekers to Rwanda: a policy which faced multiple legal challenges before being passed into law – but which had yet to be put into action by the time Sunak called the election in May.

During her tenure, Patel was accused of bullying her staff but Johnson overruled an official conclusion that she broke the ministerial code, allowing her to stay in post.

Seat: Patel was victorious in Witham with 18,827 votes, ahead of Labour on 13,682.

• Read more: Who is the real Priti Patel? (The Guardian - from 2020)

James Cleverly (7/1)

James Cleverly, the ex-home secretary, has yet to declare his intentions and told Sky News in the aftermath of his re-election as an MP: “What might happen in the future I’ll leave that for the near future.”

Cleverly is a centrist - he said the Rwanda plan was not the "be all and end all" - who previously served as foreign secretary and was first elected as the Tory MP for Braintree in May 2015.

After an injury cut short his army career, he got a business degree and joined the Territorial Army. Cleverly worked in magazine and digital publishing before setting up his own business.

Seat: Cleverly was successful in Braintree, winning 17,414 votes to his Labour challenger's 13,744.

• Read more: 'We force people to do things all the time': Cleverly defends national service plan (Yahoo News UK)

Suella Braverman (9/1)

Suella Braverman is another former hardline home secretary seen as a contender for the leadership.

Sacked by Sunak in November last year, she became an outspoken critic of his administration and urged the party to move to the right following the disastrous local election results in May.

And, following the general election wipeout, Braverman hit out at “liberal Conservatives who trashed the Tory party".

“We won a great majority in 2019 promising to do what the people wanted,” she said. "We were going to use our Brexit freedoms and stop waves of illegal migrants. We were going to cut taxes. We were going to stop the lunatic woke virus. We did none of this.”

Seat: Braverman won the Fareham and Waterlooville seat with 17,561 votes, compared to the Labour contender's 11,482.

• Read more: Who is Suella Braverman? The UK’s courter of controversy who thirsts for Tory leadership (The Guardian - from 2023)

Victoria Atkins (10/1)

The former health secretary has been discussed as a contender from the more moderate wing of the party and did not rule out a bid in the days after the election.

She was reportedly talked up by former deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden as a “star” capable of leading the Tories in a leaked recording from December.

Seat: Atkins held her seat in Louth and Horncastle with 17,441 votes to the Reform UK candidate's 11,935.

• Read more: Victoria Atkins leaves door open to Tory leadership bid (PA Media)

Other contenders

After finally becoming an MP at the eighth attempt, you can still bet on Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to be the next head of the Tories, although it now seems unlikely.

Under the rules of the Conservative Party, leadership hopefuls must be MPs, meaning Farage could – if he so wished and the party wanted him – cross the floor to the Tories and stand for any future leadership vacancy.

Boris Johnson is also listed by Oddschecker, though he would need to be elected as an MP within the next few months: also an unlikely prospect.

Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt and ex-energy secretary Claire Coutinho are also listed.