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Paul Warne is an English football manager and former professional footballer whose managerial career has taken him from Rotherham United to Derby County and MK Dons. His wife, Rachel, was identified in a BBC Sport profile, while Warne has spoken directly about the importance of his family.

At MK Dons, he guided the club to promotion in his first full season and remained head coach for the 2026/27 League One campaign. That achievement added to a promotion record built across three clubs, alongside the setbacks and difficult decisions he has discussed openly in interviews.

Field	Details
Full name	Paul Warne
Nationality	English
Profession	Football manager and former professional footballer
Current role	MK Dons head coach
Previous managerial clubs	Rotherham United and Derby County
Wife	Rachel, identified by BBC Sport
Managerial promotions	Five across Rotherham United, Derby County and MK Dons
Trophy success	EFL Trophy with Rotherham United
Management approach	Emphasis on trust, relationships and continuous learning
Charity involvement	Prostate United fundraising for Prostate Cancer UK

Paul Warne’s Current Role at MK Dons

MK Dons appointed Warne as head coach on 15 April 2025, following his departure from Derby County two months earlier. The appointment was initially announced as a long-term agreement; subsequent BBC reporting described a four-year deal.

He said the club’s potential under its new ownership appealed to him, although accepting a League Two position required careful consideration. Before agreeing, he held several meetings and carried out his own checks on people at the club.

By the start of the 2026/27 campaign, his task had changed from pursuing promotion out of League Two to competing in League One. In an August 2026 interview, he described reaching the Championship as the club’s longer-term ambition and acknowledged the pressure associated with pursuing consecutive promotions.

How Paul Warne Moved From Rotherham Player to Manager

Warne had two playing spells at Rotherham United before joining the coaching staff. His move into management came after Kenny Jackett resigned on 28 November 2016.

Initially appointed caretaker manager, he took the permanent position on 5 April 2017, agreeing a one-year rolling contract. The two dates mark separate stages of his appointment rather than competing accounts of when he took charge.

Management had not been his original ambition. Speaking in the BBC’s Moment of Truth coverage in 2022, Warne said he had turned down the Rotherham job three times before accepting it. He also acknowledged that he had not initially regarded himself as someone naturally drawn to studying football tactics.

Paul Warne’s Rotherham United Managerial Record

Rotherham achieved three promotions from League One under Warne. They went up through the play-offs in 2018, finished runners-up in the curtailed 2019/20 season and secured another second-place finish in 2021/22.

His tenure also included three relegations from the Championship. The repeated returns to the higher division therefore formed part of a record that included considerable difficulty staying there.

There was success in a separate competition during his final full season. On 3 April 2022, Rotherham defeated Sutton United 4–2 after extra time at Wembley to win the EFL Trophy, then known as the Papa Johns Trophy. Promotion followed in the same campaign.

Derby County and a Fourth League One Promotion

Derby County appointed Warne on 22 September 2022, with a contract scheduled to run until summer 2026. Richie Barker, Matt Hamshaw and Andy Warrington joined him from Rotherham.

Leaving was a difficult decision. In a February 2023 Sky Sports interview, Warne described the emotional attachment created by roughly two decades of association with Rotherham. He said he changed his mind several times before accepting Derby’s offer, which presented an opportunity to help develop a new culture on and off the pitch.

Derby secured automatic promotion on 27 April 2024, beating Carlisle United 2–0. They finished second in League One with 92 points, giving Warne his fourth promotion from that division as a manager.

Derby dismissed him as head coach on 7 February 2025 during a poor run of Championship results, ending his tenure before its scheduled summer 2026 conclusion. In announcing the decision, owner David Clowes credited him with restoring the club’s Championship status.

Promotion Success With MK Dons

Warne’s first full season at MK Dons brought another promotion. A 3–0 victory over Tranmere Rovers on 25 April 2026 secured the club’s return to League One, an outcome documented by both MK Dons and the EFL.

It was his fifth managerial promotion overall, following three with Rotherham and one with Derby.

The campaign ended with MK Dons as League Two runners-up. Their 1–1 draw with Fleetwood Town on 2 May left them one point behind champions Bromley. Promotion was secured, but the title went elsewhere.

Warne later described moving up from League Two as the completion of the first stage of the club’s project.

Paul Warne’s Wife and Family

BBC Sport identified Warne’s wife as Rachel in a profile published on 4 January 2019. In the same report, he spoke directly about how much his family and children meant to him.

His views on family time also extend to the players he manages. In a November 2025 interview, he explained that a long football season can keep players with their club for around 11 months, making opportunities to spend time with their families valuable.

He has also encouraged players to understand one another beyond football, including the circumstances team-mates may be dealing with away from the training ground.

Paul Warne’s Management Style and Professional Habits

Trust and relationships are central to Warne’s account of his management approach. Speaking to Sky Sports in 2023, he explained that those connections take time to establish when entering a new dressing room.

He has been similarly candid about his own uncertainty. In BBC interviews in 2022 and 2025, he described experiencing “impostor syndrome” during his playing and managerial career. In his telling, those feelings encouraged greater effort and continued learning. Reading leadership books and listening to other people are among the ways he tries to improve.

Some of his methods draw on NFL organisations. He has described giving personalised rewards to players who score their first goal under him and occasionally allowing “Victory Mondays”, with time away from training after a weekend win when the schedule permits.

Running provides another part of his working routine. In November 2025, he said he sometimes ran from the training ground back to Stadium MK after morning sessions. The journey took roughly half an hour and gave him time alone to clear his head before afternoon work.

That need for thinking space sits alongside his account of management’s emotional demands. He has described wins as bringing relief, while defeats can leave him repeatedly examining his decisions.

Prostate United and Public Fundraising Work

Warne has participated in Prostate United, the fundraising challenge supporting Prostate Cancer UK. Derby County documented his involvement alongside members of his coaching staff in 2022 and 2024.

According to Prostate Cancer UK, a team exercise he introduced at Rotherham in 2018 helped inspire Stephen Gilpin, whose subsequent challenge developed into Prostate United.

The initiative was created by Gilpin and Ross Burbeary. Warne’s involvement has been as a participant and supporter.

Paul Warne’s Career in Perspective

Warne’s management record combines repeated promotions with the difficulties of sustaining Championship football. His work at Rotherham and Derby established that pattern; promotion with MK Dons extended his record to a third club.

His current responsibility is to build on that latest promotion in League One, with the Championship remaining the club’s stated longer-term aim.

Tomasz Schafernaker is a BBC broadcast meteorologist and visual artist whose professional life spans weather forecasting, science communication and painting. Born in Gdańsk, Poland, he grew up between Poland and Britain before studying meteorology at the University of Reading.

His broadcasting career developed from regional forecasts to BBC One’s national weather team. Alongside that work, he established an art practice encompassing detailed realism and abstraction. His contribution to BBC News Polska, which began in 2025, brought his Polish language skills into his broadcasting work.

Field	Details
Full name	Tomasz Schafernaker
Birth year	1979
Birthplace	Gdańsk, Poland
Professions	Broadcast meteorologist and visual artist
Education	BSc in Meteorology, University of Reading, 2000
Forecasting training	Met Office College and an RAF placement
BBC regional weather debut	2001
BBC One national weather team	Joined in 2006
Professional award	TRIC Best TV Weather Presenter, 2010
Art achievement	Won the celebrity edition of Landscape Artist of the Year in 2021
BBC News Polska	Began contributing in June 2025
Artistic approaches	Hyperrealism and abstraction

Polish Background and Early Interest in Meteorology

Schafernaker was born in 1979 and spent parts of his childhood in London and Gdańsk. In a July 2025 interview with MyPolska.UK, he recalled living in London before returning to Poland in the late 1980s, studying in Gdańsk and later moving back to Britain.

By about 15, he had decided that he wanted to pursue meteorology professionally. His interest in science existed alongside an enthusiasm for art, both of which would become part of his working life.

He has also spoken about the importance of his Polish heritage. In the same interview, he encouraged Poles living in Britain to maintain their cultural roots and pass the Polish language to younger generations.

University Training and Professional Forecasting

Schafernaker completed his BSc in Meteorology at the University of Reading in 2000. Further professional training took him through the Met Office College and an RAF placement, where his responsibilities included briefing pilots and preparing weather assessments for aviation operations.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2017, he recalled finding the move into operational forecasting daunting. The responsibility was considerably greater than in his earlier junior work: his assessments could inform operational decisions.

He described adapting to that change, gaining experience in forecasting where the information had immediate practical consequences.

How Tomasz Schafernaker Built His BBC Weather Career

His BBC career began around 2000 in a broadcast-assistant role. According to his account in a 2017 Radio Times interview, an aunt submitted the application on his behalf.

His first regional BBC television weather appearances followed in 2001. He then joined BBC One’s national weather team in 2006. These were separate stages in his career: entering the broadcasting organisation, beginning regional on-screen forecasts and moving into national presentation.

The work combined his forecasting training with the task of explaining weather to a television audience. In his 2025 MyPolska.UK interview, he described an educational element to weather broadcasting, saying viewers expect presenters to explain the science behind conditions as well as deliver the forecast.

Professional Recognition and Public Profile

On 9 March 2010, Schafernaker received the TRIC award for Best TV Weather Presenter.

Further recognition came in May 2017, when Radio Times announced that its readers had chosen him as their favourite television weather presenter. Approximately 25,000 readers participated in the poll, which measured audience preference rather than forecasting accuracy.

Responding to the result, he said he was flattered. Asked about his presenting approach, he explained that he tried to behave naturally on air rather than construct a separate television persona.

Tomasz Schafernaker’s Art Career

Art was a longstanding interest rather than a new direction that emerged after his broadcasting career. In his 2017 Radio Times interview, Schafernaker described feeling drawn to both scientific and artistic work, although science initially shaped his university studies.

A self-taught artist, he works across hyperrealism and abstraction. On his art website, he identifies light, colour, texture, movement and meteorological phenomena among the influences on his paintings. He also describes devoting roughly half his time to painting.

His work received wider public attention when he won the celebrity edition of Landscape Artist of the Year in 2021. The achievement appears in his official biography and is also recorded by Poland’s Institute of Meteorology and Water Management – National Research Institute, known as IMGW-PIB.

Painting has become a commercial activity alongside his forecasting work. In July 2025, he told MyPolska.UK that he had sold approximately 200 paintings through his website during the preceding few years. That figure was his own estimate.

Polish Roots and BBC News Polska

Schafernaker began contributing to BBC News Polska from 24 June 2025, according to his interview with MyPolska.UK the following month.

He explained that the BBC had invited him to contribute because of his Polish background and language skills. He described the role as covering weather forecasts alongside material about climate, science, art and other subjects.

The Polish-language service gave him an opportunity to use both his professional experience and his bilingual background in his broadcasting work.

Meteorology, Science Communication and Public Work

On 22 February 2024, Schafernaker visited IMGW-PIB in Poland for a public event about his work. The institute documented discussions covering BBC forecast production, meteorological communication and the relationship between forecasting technology and media presentation.

Later that year, he hosted the Royal Academy of Engineering’s “Innovation Incoming: Weather Warnings from AI” event on 17 October. The panel examined artificial intelligence in weather forecasting, including Google DeepMind’s GraphCast technology, with contributions from the Met Office chief executive and other specialists.

His interest in technological change had appeared in earlier interviews. Speaking to The Guardian in 2017, he anticipated that artificial intelligence and changing media habits could alter traditional television weather presentation. Those remarks expressed his expectations at the time; his later Academy role was as the discussion’s host.

Recent Art and Professional Activity

By September 2026, Schafernaker’s art website continued to offer paintings and prints. It also listed a limited selection of prints available to view at For Arts Sake in Ealing. His enquiries page stated that he was concentrating on other projects and was not accepting portrait or pet commissions.

A further example of his recent work was Baltic Dunes, an acrylic painting dated 2026. A Terrence Higgins Trust-branded listing on the Indy Auction platform recorded the piece as donated by Schafernaker for the charity’s auction on 25 March 2026.

Conclusion

Schafernaker’s career has developed through professional forecasting, national broadcasting and an established painting practice. His more recent work includes Polish-language reporting and public discussions about forecasting technology, extending the ways in which he communicates science. Art remains a substantial part of that professional life, with its own achievements and continuing output.

MsMagazine.co.uk