Ward had long been considered a 'Face of the 1980s' as a Vogue model.

She married veterinary surgeon Paul Hobson in 1988, and the couple have two sons, Nathanial (b.1989) and Joshua (b. 1993). They divorced in 1996 after Ward became involved with Korean-American Writer, Rena Brannan, and came out as a lesbian. Ward and Brannan made their first public commitment at the Groucho Club in 2000, then had a civil partnership ceremony in 2005, followed by marriage after it was legalised in 2014.

During the 1990s she turned her acting energies to stagework, with considerable acclaim and success. She has appeared in several Glasgow Citizens' Theatre productions including Private Lives (as Amanda), Don Carlos (as Queen Elizabeth) and most strikingly in Hamlet as Ophelia. In 2006 she produced and starred in Henry Green's Nothing which had its US premier at the 59E59 Theatre in New York for the Brits Off Broadway Festival.

Her most recent films are Out of Bounds (2003), in which she co-stars with Sophia Myles and Celia Imrie, and Book of Blood (2008), co-starring Jonas Armstrong and Reg Fuller. She also recently appeared in Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre (2011). She has worked with such film greats as Susan Sarandon in The Hunger directed by Tony Scott, Liv Ullmann in A Time of Indifference (it) directed by Mauro Bolognini and Elizabeth Taylor in Young Toscanini directed by Franco Zefferili.

Her television work includes the acclaimed mini-series A Dark Adapted Eye with Helena Bonham Carter as the perfectly poised yet ultimately doomed Eden and the sweeping fantasy, Dinotopia. More recently, Sophie had the recurring role of Dr Helen Trent in long-running ITV drama Heartbeat. Helen was killed off shortly after marrying Jonathan Kerrigan’s character, PC Rob Walker. In the show Helen drove a Citroen DS Safari, which Sophie has said she loved! In 2008, Ward joined the cast of Holby City in a recurring role as Sophia Byrne, sister of surgeon Joseph Byrne.