Strong’s first acting appearance was in the Royal Court Theatre’s production Live Like Pigs, when she was eleven. In 1973, whilst a pupil at Holland Park School, she appeared in the horror film Nothing But the Night as Mary Valley, and she was a regular in the children’s TV series The Flockton Flyer between 1977 and 1979, as Jan Carter.

Strong married former Footballers’ Wives and Eldorado star Jesse Birdsall in 2000. They have one son Oscar (born 1988), and one daughter Lottie (born 1991). She now lives in Bexhill, East Sussex.

She appeared on the West End stage in 2008, in the musical Our House, in which she played Kath Casey. In May 2010, Strong appeared in an episode of Midsomer Murders. In 2011, Strong joined the cast of Round Heeled Woman at the Aldwych Theatre.

Strong gained mainstream recognition as Cassandra Parry, the love interest and later wife of Rodney Trotter, in Only Fools and Horses, debuting in the series’ sixth season. She also appeared in the “Observation” segment about Detective Samantha Smith made for the 1990 series of The Krypton Factor, the two-part drama serial The Missing Postman as WPC Rachel McMahon, the BBC drama Real Women from 1997 to 1998, as Hetty in ITV’s Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married (1999), and in BBC drama Casualty in 2013 as Jim Brodie’s wife, Elizabeth.

On 16 September 2016, she joined the cast of the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders, in the recurring role of Geraldine Clough.