She sang in the church choir of St James', Kidbrooke, and attended Blackheath High School from 1973 until 1980.

Both before and since Doctor Who, Aldred has had a varied and busy television career, particularly in children's programming, where she has presented educational programmes under the name "Sophie Socket" such as Corners, Melvin and Maureen's Music-a-grams[2] (which ran from 1992 to '96), Tiny and Crew (which she presented, 1995–96), the BBC series Words and Pictures (1992, 1996-2001), and also the CITV paranormal show It's a Mystery in 1996.

She has also reprised her role as Ace in the 1993 thirtieth-anniversary charity special Dimensions in Time and, since 2000, the Doctor Who audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions.

Throughout the 2000s she has worked extensively as a voice-over artist for television advertisements,[4] and has also provided voices for animated series such as Bob the Builder, Sergeant Stripes, the UK dubbed version of the CGI animated version of the Australian TV series Bananas in Pyjamas, El Nombre, Peter Rabbit, Noddy in Toyland, The Magic Key and Dennis & Gnasher.

In 2019, Aldred reprised the role of Ace in a special announcement trailer for the Doctor Who Season 26 Blu-ray box set.

[8] That same year, she also appeared as Mistress Na in the direct-to-DVD film Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor; a role for which she won Best Supporting Actress at the Accolade Competition in 2020.

[11] Aldred was in a relationship with fellow Manchester University student Tim Booth of the band James in the mid-1980s.