[5] Cordingly made her first major television appearance in the soap opera, Family Affairs as troubled teenager Sara Warrington;[6] a lapdancer who blew most of her wages on cocaine.

She left the soap after a year to play the lead in Noël Coward's Semi-Monde at the Lyric Theatre, West End.

[7] She then played Rose, a cabinet secretary reporting to Derek Jacobi's Major Merton, in Two Men went to War, a film starring Kenneth Cranham and Leo Bill.

[8][6] After her departure from the show when her character was murdered in 2004, ITV made an hour-long spin off called Kerry's Story that aired on ITV3.

[11] In March and April 2017, Cordingly appeared as Debbie Morton, Shirley Carter's (Linda Henry) cellmate in British soap opera EastEnders.

In 2013, it was made into an independent feature film and she reprised her role, this time opposite George MacKay, Nigel Lindsay and Norman Pace.

She worked with Sharon Gless on A Round Heeled Woman in the West End (2012) and has twice played lead roles in Feydeau farces for Sam Walters at the Orange Tree Theatre.