Rishi Sunak is 5 feet 7 inches tall (1.70m). When he walked out of Downing Street on 25 October 2022 to give his first speech as Prime Minister, a small black footstool was already waiting behind the lectern. Britain had an opinion before he said a word.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Height in feet and inches | 5 ft 7 in |
| Height in metres | 1.70 m |
| Height in centimetres | 170 cm |
Several UK outlets reported his height as 5ft 6in after his appointment and the figure spread quickly. It is a rounding error: 1.70m converts precisely to 5 feet 7 inches, not 5 feet 6.
Table of Contents
How Rishi Sunak’s Height Compares
Against the UK Male Average
NHS England’s Health Survey for England 2024, the country’s official annual health dataset, puts the mean height of adult men in England at 175.8cm (5ft 9in). At 170cm, Sunak sits around 5.8cm below that figure, placing him in the shorter half of the adult male population in England.
Against Other UK Prime Ministers
| Prime Minister | Height |
|---|---|
| Boris Johnson | 5 ft 10 in |
| Keir Starmer | 5 ft 8.5 in |
| Rishi Sunak | 5 ft 7 in |
| Theresa May | Approx. 5 ft 7 in |
| Liz Truss | 5 ft 5 in |
| Margaret Thatcher | 5 ft 5 in |
| Winston Churchill | Approx. 5 ft 6 in |
Sunak was three inches shorter than Boris Johnson, roughly an inch and a half shorter than Keir Starmer who succeeded him, and taller than both Liz Truss and Margaret Thatcher. Historical biographies consistently place Churchill at around 5ft 6in, which makes Sunak taller than him as well.
The Height Moments From His Time in Office
The Footstool
When Sunak arrived at the Downing Street lectern on 25 October 2022, a small black footstool had been placed on the ground behind it. Someone had measured the gap between the floor and the microphone and found something to fill it. The cameras showed a Prime Minister delivering his first speech. Twitter found the footstool within the hour and shared it several hundred thousand times.
The Budget Stairs
In March 2021, while serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sunak stood at the top of the No. 11 staircase to hold up the red Budget box, with Treasury ministers lined up on the steps below him. From every camera angle in the room, he was the tallest figure in the photograph.
The Simon Clarke Appointment
Reports first cited in The Daily Mail alleged that Boris Johnson had appointed 6ft 5in Conservative MP Simon Clarke as Chief Secretary to the Treasury partly to exploit the height contrast with Sunak. A second Treasury minister at the time, Jesse Norman, was also 6ft 5in. The appointments were real. The motive remained reported, not confirmed.
Angela Rayner at the Dispatch Box
In April 2024, with Sunak in Germany, Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner called him a “pint-sized loser” at Prime Minister’s Questions. Daniel Kawczynski, the Conservative MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham and, at 6ft 9in, a credible claimant to the title of tallest parliamentarian in British history, went to the Speaker to formally complain.
“I have many, many adjectives I would like to call Angela Rayner publicly but I don’t, because of a sense of civility.” — Daniel Kawczynski MP
Nothing came of the complaint.
In His Own Words
Sunak addressed the subject directly on more than one occasion. During the Conservative leadership contest, he acknowledged that people regularly told him: “Wow, you’re even shorter in real life.” After succeeding Liz Truss as Prime Minister, he reportedly joked that Britain had gone “from the shortest-serving Prime Minister to the shortest.”
Rishi Sunak’s Height Among World Leaders
At the G7 Summit in Hiroshima in May 2023, Sunak appeared alongside:
| World Leader | Height |
|---|---|
| Justin Trudeau, Canada | 6 ft 2 in |
| Joe Biden, USA | 5 ft 11 in |
| Emmanuel Macron, France | 5 ft 8 in |
| Vladimir Putin, Russia | 5 ft 7 in |
| Olaf Scholz, Germany | 5 ft 6 in |
Putin and Sunak share the same reported height of 5ft 7in. The Russian President has spent years constructing an aggressively physical public image through shirtless photographs on horseback and televised martial arts sessions, a deliberate effort to counter perceptions about his stature.
Sunak made jokes instead.
Height and Politics: What the Research Found
There is a substantial body of academic work on height and political authority. The findings run in one direction:
- A Texas Tech University study in Social Science Quarterly found taller candidates won 58% of US presidential elections from 1789 to 2008, and the popular vote in 67% of those contests
- Research published in the Leadership Quarterly found taller presidents are consistently rated by political experts as having stronger leadership and communication skills
- A University of Groningen study found shorter stature can reduce a politician’s electoral prospects
- Psychology Today has reported that after elections, winners are perceived as taller than they were before voting day, while losing candidates are perceived as shorter
One point is specific to Sunak. Every piece of that research measures height against voter behaviour at the ballot box. He was never elected Prime Minister by the British public. He won the role through a Conservative Party vote among MPs and members, and was appointed by King Charles III. The academic link between a politician’s height and democratic outcomes had no direct application to how he got the job.
The coverage ran regardless.
Rishi Sunak: Key Facts
- Born: 12 May 1980, Southampton
- Education: Winchester College; Lincoln College, Oxford (PPE); Stanford University (MBA, Fulbright Scholar)
- Prime Minister: 25 October 2022 to 5 July 2024
- Historic firsts: First British Asian Prime Minister, first Hindu Prime Minister, youngest PM since 1812 (at age 42)
- Appointed by: King Charles III
- Current role: Backbench Conservative MP for Richmond and Northallerton (since November 2024)
- Wife: Akshata Murty, married 2009, daughter of Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy
- Combined net worth: Approx. £529 million (2024 figure)
At 5ft 7in (1.70m), Sunak is taller than Winston Churchill, taller than Liz Truss, and the same reported height as Vladimir Putin. He was Prime Minister for just under two years. In that time, nothing generated more column inches about him than the distance between the soles of his shoes and the top of his head.
