Tate has appeared in films, including Love and Other Disasters (2006), Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution (2007), Gulliver's Travels (2010), Monte Carlo (2011), and SuperBob (2015).

[13][16] Prior to getting a place there, Tate went to the Sylvia Young Theatre School, but left after a week, later stating, "Even at that age, I realised I wasn't Bonnie Langford.

[25] Soon after, she co-wrote and starred in Barking (1998), a late-night sketch show broadcast on Channel 4 featuring a host of performers who included David Walliams, Peter Kay and Mackenzie Crook.

[26] The next year, she returned to the festival with her own sell-out one-woman show,[25] which was followed by roles in comedy series Big Train,[17] Attention Scum, Charlie Brooker's TVGoHome and several BBC Radio productions.

[26] After being spotted at Edinburgh by the casting director Tracey Gillham, she was given her first major television role as Angela in the comedy Wild West (2002–2004) set in the small Cornish town.

[27] The show also starred Dawn French as her lesbian partner and local shop and post office co-owner Mary,[26][28] who commented, "Catherine Tate is far too talented and she must be destroyed.

[33] In January 2005, Tate appeared as Mitzi Kosinki in the ITV adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel A Murder Is Announced, starring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple.

[35][36] Tate returned to the stage for the first time since working with the Royal Shakespeare Company,[37] to play a role in the original West End production of Some Girl(s) (2005), alongside Sara Powell, Lesley Manville, Saffron Burrows and Friends star David Schwimmer.

[41] Tate also played the role of Donna Noble in Doctor Who, a temp worker from Chiswick who suddenly appears in the TARDIS at the end of the episode "Doomsday".

[47] In the television adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name, The Bad Mother's Handbook, she played the dramatic lead role and co-starred with Anne Reid, Holliday Grainger and Robert Pattinson.

She acted in sketches with David Tennant, her fellow National Youth Theatre alumni Daniel Craig, Lenny Henry and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, who used the show's famous catchphrase, "Am I bovvered?".

The episode was subject to criticism when 42 viewers complained about the amount of swearing, and accused Tate of bigotry over the depiction of a family from Northern Ireland as terrorists, whose Christmas presents included a balaclava and a pair of knuckle dusters, in reference to the Troubles.

"[55] In summer 2008, Tate starred as Michelle, a promiscuous mathematics teacher, in David Eldridge's Under the Blue Sky at the Duke of York's Theatre, alongside Francesca Annis and Nigel Lindsay.

[67] In March 2010, Tate took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London.

On Christmas Day 2010 Tate appeared as Queen Isabelle of Lilliput in the film adaptation of Gulliver's Travels starring Jack Black in the title role.

The video showed Tate alongside comedians Alan Carr, James Corden, John Bishop and David Walliams, all auditioning to become Take That's ultimate tribute band, Fake That.

[70] In December, she presented Channel 4's two-hour documentary Catherine Tate: Laughing at the Noughties, in which she met Carr, Walliams, Noel Fielding, Rob Brydon and her Doctor Who co-star David Tennant to discuss the comedy highlights of the 2000s.

[77] At the same ceremony, she received an award in the Best Supporting Actress category for the Royal National Theatre production of Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings (2010–2011), in which she played Belinda.

[81] However, in January 2012 Tate returned to The Office as a series regular for the second half of season eight, reprising her role as Nellie, who was hired as a "misguided special projects manager".

[86] Around the same time in 2013, she joined David Walliams and Philip Glenister in the BBC One sitcom Big School (2013–2014), playing the main role of French teacher Sarah Postern in both series of the show.

[87] Tate later appeared as a nun alongside Walliams as Lou Todd in a Red Nose Day 2015 sketch, featuring Stephen Hawking in the Andy Pipkin role.

"[91][19] She reprised the role several times between 2009 and 2018 on Graham Norton, Michael McIntyre, Paul O'Grady and Alan Carr's television shows and performed Bonnie Tyler's song "Holding Out for a Hero" in character for Let's Sing and Dance for Comic Relief (2017).

[97]On New Year's Day 2016, Tate played the role of hand model Sapphire Diamond in the television adaptation of David Walliams's children's book Billionaire Boy.

[98] She appeared in Bruce's Hall of Fame with Alexander Armstrong the following day with a musical tribute to her childhood hero Victoria Wood, calling her the first woman she had seen being funny on television.

[104] In late 2018, she brought the show to Australia and New Zealand with the help of two new cast members, David O'Reilly and Alex Carter, before finishing her tour at London's Wyndham's Theatre in January 2019.

It was also covered live on Magic Radio, where listeners heard Tate hilariously going back on fluffed lines multiple times, occasionally swearing.

Talking about his frequent colleague during the recording session, Tennant said: "I love working with Catherine because of the life that she brings to something and the way that she can turn the most mundane line into something glorious and sparkling.

[109] In April 2020, Tate revived her popular character Lauren Cooper for The Big Night In, a telethon held during the COVID-19 pandemic, in a skit that had her being schooled remotely by a teacher played again by Tennant.

[116] In August, the BBC commissioned Queen of Oz, a sitcom written by and starring Tate as a disgraced member of a fictional British Royal Family sent to rule Australia, which aired in June 2023.

[129] In August 2017, after being asked at the Wizard World Chicago convention about what her career would look like if she hadn't become an actress and comedian, Tate said: "I'd definitely work with animals.