The date for the installation of the next Archbishop of Canterbury has been announced.

Woking-born the Rt Rev and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally DBE will be enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on Wednesday, March 25.

Dame Sarah, 63, who has been Bishop of London since 2018, will be the first female Archbishop of Canterbury and the 106th person to hold the post.

She succeeds Justin Welby, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 2013 until his resignation in 2025, after an abuse scandal in the Church.

Dame Sarah grew up in Woking, where she attended Winston Churchill School in St John’s. She later trained as a nurse at South Bank Polytechnic and the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.

Her early experiences in Woking and in the NHS shaped her long-standing commitment to public service and community care.

She will legally become Archbishop of Canterbury at a confirmation of election ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday, January 28.

Her installation two months later will mark the symbolic start of the Archbishop’s public ministry in the Church of England and across the Anglican Communion.

“Rooted in centuries of tradition, the service will look forward with the hope of Jesus Christ – and celebrate the diversity of the Church of England, the nation and the Anglican Communion today,” said a Church of England spokesperson.

“Archbishop Sarah will be installed on the Cathedral Chair (Cathedra) as the Diocesan Bishop of the See of Canterbury, the oldest diocese in the English Church.

“Following this, she will be installed on the Chair of St Augustine (St Augustine Cathedra) as Primate of All England, which also symbolises her ministry in the Anglican Communion.”

The installation date, March 25, is also the Feast of the Annunciation, which marks the day the angel Gabriel told Mary she would be the mother of Jesus.

“As I respond to the call of Christ to this new ministry, I do so in the same spirit of service to God and to others that has motivated me since I first came to faith as a teenager,” Dame Sarah said when she was named as the next Archbishop earlier this month.

“At every stage of that journey, through my nursing career and Christian ministry, I have learned to listen deeply – to people and to God’s gentle prompting – to seek to bring people together to find hope and healing.

“I want, very simply, to encourage the Church to continue to grow in confidence in the Gospel, to speak of the love that we find in Jesus Christ and for it to shape our actions.

“And I look forward to sharing this journey of faith with the millions of people serving God and their communities in parishes all over the country and across the global Anglican Communion.

“I know this is a huge responsibility but I approach it with a sense of peace and trust in God to carry me as He always has.”

Before entering the Church, Dame Sarah was a specialist cancer nurse and became the government’s chief nursing officer for England in 1999. She was ordained in 2002. She is married and has two children.