He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium pace bowler. He made his Test match debut against Australia in the fifth Ashes Test in 2013. He made his first Test century against India (137 not out) at Lord's in August 2018. He is one of only five players since the start of test cricket to have his name on both major honours boards at Lords, for scoring a century and taking 10 wickets in a test on the ground. As a young player at Warwickshire Ashley Giles commented, "if you wanted to clone a young cricketer it would be Woakes."