Arnold attended Cambridge University, studying piano and winning an Instrumental Award there. She went on to the Royal Academy of Music, winning several competitions and earning the Sir Henry Richardson Award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund. Arnold was a Park Lane Group Young Artist early in her career. Arnold has appeared as a soloist around Britain and beyond, including at such major foreign venues as the Esplanade in Singapore. She is an enthusiastic chamber player who co-founded the Warwick Piano Trio with violinist Roger Coull and cellist Nick Roberts. She also co-founded the Arnold Ensemble with clarinetist Marie Lloyd and violist Jonathan Barritt.
In 2009, Arnold became a founding director of the Butlers Marston Concert Society, a position she still holds. She has been especially visible as one half of a piano four-hands duo with pianist and organist Charles Matthews that has performed, sometimes under the name Four Hands, around the U.K. The pair's repertory is focused on British music, including the complete piano works of York Bowen, and they were featured at the 2019 English Music Festival. Matthews is a fellow member with Arnold of the faculty at the Birmingham Conservatoire, where she is a chamber music coach. She also teaches at the Royal Academy of Music, where she holds the position of Staff Accompanist. Arnold is a member of the Royal Society of Music examining panel, and she is Senior Piano Tutor at Warwick University. She also has a private teaching practice. Arnold performs for the charity Music in Hospitals and Care. In 2021, she and Matthews were heard on a recording of Vaughan Williams' Suite for Four Hands on the Albion label. ~ James Manheim, Rovi