Born in London, Cole is the eldest of three siblings. She has a younger sister, Cassandra, and a brother, Dominic. Her mother is a telecentre manager and her father is a driving instructor. Cole trained at the Oxford School of Drama, graduating in 2002.

Cole won the role of Clarissa Payne in What A Girl Wants (2003), starring opposite Colin Firth and Amanda Bynes, while still at drama school. She graduated early to begin filming. She was then cast as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet at Theatr Clwyd.

Cole’s first lead role was that of Cassie Hughes in Hex. She portrayed Cassie for the whole of the first season of Hex and the first three episodes of the second. Upon her departure the character was killed off. Co-star Jemima Rooper has stated that the reason for Cole’s exit from the show was that she wanted to move on.

After leaving Hex, Cole went on to appear in the critically acclaimed Jane Eyre TV serial, for the BBC, and guest starred as Lilith in the Doctor Who episode “The Shakespeare Code”. She provided an audio commentary for the episode on the DVD release of the show’s third series, alongside David Tennant.

Other roles include a cameo in the James Bond film, Casino Royale (2006) as the receptionist of the Ocean Club hotel in Nassau where Bond checks in, and Diana Mann in the pilot episode of Cane. This was Cole’s first appearance on American television. She has also appeared in Sold, a sitcom broadcast on ITV, playing Mel, The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007), as Jenny Walker, and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), as Charlotte Warren.

Cole also played Caroline Bingley in Lost in Austen, once again alongside Jemima Rooper.

In 2009 Cole played Dr Sarah King in Poirot: Appointment with Death, and was cast in the lead role of Maggie Hill, a brilliant surgeon who endures adult-onset schizophrenia, in a pilot for Fox. She also starred in the films Surviving Evil (2009), alongside Natalie Mendoza and Billy Zane, and Doghouse (2009), with Danny Dyer and Billy Murray. Cole stars in the upcoming noir science fiction action thriller film The Scribbler, which is directed by Jake West.