Rachel Katherine Schofield (born 1976 in Winchester, Hampshire) is a journalist who works for the BBC.

She can usually be seen presenting regular relief shifts on BBC News, the corporation's rolling news channel, each Monday-Wednesday. She returned to BBC News in October 2007 after a year-long maternity leave.

Schofield was educated at St Margaret's School, Exeter, an independent school for girls, near the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in south-west England.

She studied Modern European Languages (French, German and Italian) at Durham University (St John's College), where she joined Purple FM. She was at Durham from 1994-98, spending a year in Vienna. From 1998-9 she did a Broadcast Journalism course at the London College of Printing (now called the London College of Communication).

She started her career at the BBC on BBC Radio Newcastle in 1999 and also reported for BBC Look North. She then moved to be a reporter for BBC Radio Four before joining BBC News.

She met Jeremy Vine at a gala dinner. Six months later in the run-up to the 2001 general election, the Newsnight reporter toured the country from Land's End to John o' Groats in a 1976 VW camper van. Stopping off at Newcastle upon Tyne (where he had initially worked in local radio) he met Rachel Schofield while she was working at the BBC's Look North. It was an instant attraction, and he proposed in early April 2002, when she was living in east London, aged 26, and working on You and Yours.

Rachel (Hebrew: רחל, Modern Raḥel Tiberian Rāḫēl, Rāḥēl ISO 259-3 Raḥel ; meaning "ewe") as described in the Bible, is a prophet and the favorite wife of Jacob, one of the three Biblical Patriarchs, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah, Jacob's first wife. Jacob was her first cousin, and she was the youngest niece of Rebecca.

Rachel is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 29 when Jacob happens upon her as she is watering her lamb. He had traveled a great distance to find his mother's brother, Laban. Rebekah had sent him there to be safe from his furious twin brother, Esau.

During Jacob's stay, he fell in love with Rachel and agreed to work seven years for Laban in return for her hand in marriage. On the night of the wedding, the bride was veiled and Jacob did not notice that Leah, Rachel's older sister, had been substituted for Rachel. Whereas "Rachel was lovely in form and beautiful," "Leah had tender eyes". Later Jacob confronted Laban, who excused his own deception by insisting that the older sister should marry first. He assured Jacob that after his wedding week was finished, he could take Rachel as a wife as well, and work another seven years as payment for her.