She has been the Vicar of St Peter's Hale and St Elizabeth's Ashley, in the Diocese of Chester, since April 2007 and has been the Dean of Women in Ministry for the Diocese since the start of 2010.
The 48-year-old is a mother of two grown up children and is married to George, who is also a priest.
After school in Manchester she went to University at Oxford before training for ministry at Cranmer Hall in Durham.
She became a deacon in 1993 and a priest in 1994, serving her curacy in Blackburn, Lancashire.
Revd Lane also worked in the Diocese of York, as a Chaplain in a hospital and for further education.
Her career also includes Family Life Officer for the Committee for Social Responsibility in the Diocese of Chester.
Although she was one of eight clergy women from the Church of England elected as Participant Observers in the House of Bishops she was not seen as one of the favourites.
The Church said her interests include being a school governor, encouraging social action initiatives, learning to play the saxophone, supporting Manchester United, reading and doing cryptic crosswords.
She becomes the new Bishop of Stockport, a post that has been vacant since May, and will go down in history as the Church of England's first female bishop.
It's a "remarkable day for me and an historic day for the Church," she said.
The vicar said she was "not a little daunted to be entrusted with such a ministry".
She has a keen interest in education, health and social responsibility, so these are likely to be high on her agenda when she takes up her new post in January.
"I am very conscious of all those who have gone before me, women and men, who for decades have looked forward to this moment. But most of all I am thankful to God," she said.
Revd Lane will be consecrated as the 8th bishop of the town at a ceremony at York Minster on January 26.
Although the law is being changed to speed up the introduction of women bishops into the House of Lords she will not be eligible because her post is a suffragan (junior) bishop.
She's the first woman bishop in the Church of England but she won't be the last. The next could be announced in early 2015.
She said: "I've no doubt that many will follow on from me and I look forward to the time when I'm still the first, but not the only, woman to be nominated as a bishop in the Church of England."