Elaine Storkey was educated at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, doing postgraduate work in philosophy at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and York University, England. Her first academic post was in philosophy in Oxford, as a tutor at Manchester College, Oxford. She left to join her husband in the Sociology department at the University of Stirling.

Elaine Storkey has authored seven books including What's Right With Feminism (ISBN 0-28-104866-5) and Mary's Story, Mary's Song (ISBN 0-00-627702-0). She began broadcasting with the BBC in 1986, after returning from lecturing at Calvin College, Michigan, and Covenant College, Tennessee, USA. She has since been involved in many documentaries, arts, news and current affairs programmes. She has been a presenter on Radio 4's Thought for the Today for over 20 years and has written many scripts for the BBC World Service. She has also been a member of the General Synod of the Church of England since 1987, serving on the Archbishops Rural Commission and the Cathedrals Commission. For many years she wrote for The Independent and now regularly writes for the Swedish newspaper Dagen, and for the Church Times. During the 1990s she collaborated with Catholic author and theologian Magaret Hebblethwaite and they co-authored a book exploring Christian feminism from two different traditions.

After many years teaching and writing with the Open University, and presenting radio and television documentaries on gender, race and ethnicity, Elaine Storkey became the Director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity in 1991, a post she held until 1999. She also taught with King's College London. In 1997 Elaine Storkey became President of Tearfund, a Christian relief and development charity, and has since been involved in monitoring aid, relief and advocacy work in countries of the Global South. In 2010 she and her husband, Alan, became founder members of Restored, an organisation committed to advocating against violence to women.[1]

She has served on many other boards and councils, including the Crown Nominations Commission, the environmental agency A Rocha, and as Vice President of the University of Gloucestershire. She is currently Chair of Fulcrum, the Church of England think-tank. She holds a Lambeth DD from Oxford University, and was given an honorary PhD from the University of Gloucestershire.

Her book Created or Constructed grew out of lectures given at the University of New South Wales in Australia. From 2003 to 2007, Storkey was a Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and a colleague of Alister McGrath. Amidst much publicity in 2008, after twelve members of the academic staff had resigned, critical of the leadership of the college principal, Richard Turnbull, she took Wycliffe Hall to an employment tribunal. The Hall admitted it did not comply with employment law and was ordered to pay compensation. She continues to teach on the Christian Mind course at Oxford University whose programme director is Professor Donald Hay. She became a member of High Table at Newnham College, Cambridge in January 2008 and in February 2009 she was appointed as Director of Education and Training for the Church of England's Church Army. In the summer of 2009 she held a Cambridge Templeton Fellowship in Journalism and in 2010 she became Chair of The Church and Media network.

Dr Storkey lectures across the world, including in Haiti, India and Ethiopia, and is a prominent feminist evangelical. Her writings have brought a biblical perspective to the feminist movement. She is concerned to highlight the impact of climate change and global poverty, as well as of sexual violence, on women. She has visited many African countries. She was awarded a life-time award for services to women by the American group CBE in 2008.