As sessile organisms plants must cope with ever changing environmental conditions. To survive plants have evolved elaborate mechanisms to perceive and rapidly respond to a diverse range of abiotic and biotic stresses. Central to this response is the ability to modulate gene expression at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. This review will focus on recent progress that has been made towards understanding the rapid reprogramming of the transcriptome that occurs in response to stress as well as emerging mechanisms underpinning the reprogramming of gene expression in response to stress.