[3] Wainwright began her career as a scriptwriter on the long-running radio serial drama The Archers, and worked on the television soap operas Emmerdale and Coronation Street in the 1990s.

After two self-described "flops" in the mid-2000s, Wainwright found success with Unforgiven (2009), for which she won the Royal Television Society's Writer of the Year Award.

[12] She said that when she was 16 years old, she saw a play called Bastard Angel by playwright Barrie Keeffe at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was impressed by its short sentences and naturalistic approach to dialogue.

[13] While at the University of York, Wainwright took an original play called Hanging On to the Edinburgh Festival and in the process found an agent, Meg Davis, for her writing.

[15] In 2006, she wrote the drama series Jane Hall, which depicts the life of a woman bus driver in London.

She likes to control the television that is created and has done some directing and producing of her own work,[15] partly to ensure the scenery and dialogue reflects Yorkshire.

[10] Her mother, Dorothy, moved to Oxfordshire to live with her daughter and rediscovered a lost love via Friends Reunited.

[citation needed] Both Last Tango in Halifax and her crime series Scott & Bailey were turned down by both the BBC and ITV before being accepted retrospectively.

While working on the drama, Wainwright said "I am thrilled beyond measure that I've been asked by the BBC to bring to life these three fascinating, talented, ingenious Yorkshire women.

[15][3][34] Wainwright was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to writing and television.