[4] Rayner was educated at Bedales School, then read Natural Sciences at Girton College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA (1st Class) in 1935.
From 1936 to 1938, she carried out research into vertebrate palaeontology, mainly at Cambridge, but also at University College, London, as a Hertha Ayrton By-Fellow at Girton.
[1] In 1939 she accepted a lecturing post in the Department of Geology at the University of Leeds, which owing to the exigencies of war comprised only three people.
In 1967, after the publication of The Stratigraphy of the British Isles, she was recognised as a major authority in the field and was widely consulted on matters of stratigraphical procedure.
[1] Following her retirement Rayner combined her love of botany with her surveying skills to create plant distribution maps of Harlow Carr Gardens, near Harrogate, for the Royal Horticultural Society.