Padel is Professor of Poetry at King's College London. From 1998 to 2001 she pioneered "The Sunday Poem", a weekly column in London's "Independent on Sunday" in readings of contemporary poems she collected in her popular books "52 Ways of Looking at a Poem" and "The Poem and the Journey". As Chair of the UK Poetry Society 2004-2007, she presided over the establishment of poetry 'Stanzas' across the UK. In 2010 she chaired Judges for the Forward Poetry Prize, in 2011 delivered the Housman Lecture at the Hay Festival on "The Name and Nature of Poetry," and inaugurated Radio 4's "Poetry Workshop", a series of programmes on writing poetry in which she led workshops with poetry groups across the UK.