[11][12][13] Ahmed read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, which made her an honorary fellow in 2019.

[23] In 2009, Ahmed won the "Broadcaster of the Year" category at the annual Stonewall Awards for her special report on "corrective rape" of lesbian women in South Africa.

[25] She won the BBC's Celebrity Mastermind, with a specialist round on Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of the Little House on the Prairie books, in December 2010.

[15] In October 2012, Ahmed succeeded Ray Snoddy as presenter of Newswatch on the BBC News Channel.

[29] In June 2020, BBC Four aired Art of Persia, a three-part study presented by Ahmed of the history and culture of Iran.

On 3 April 2023, Ahmed revealed her discovery of the earliest complete concert recording of the Beatles performing live in the UK on a special edition of Front Row on Radio 4.

[34][35] She subsequently broadcast extracts on Front Row from a second Stowe tape made the same night over dinner by the tuck shop master, after his daughters contacted her about their recording.

[43] She is a trustee of the Centre for Women's Justice,[44] a member of the blue plaques panel for Historic England,[45] and sits on the advisory board for the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford.

[50] In a 2020 interview with The Observer she revealed that a 1975 episode of The Goodies about newsroom sexism inspired her during the tribunal process.