Jung Yumi started her acting career by appearing in short films such as Tell Her I Love Her in 2003 and How to Operate a Polaroid Camera in 2004. In 2005, she landed her first feature film role in Blossom Again, in which she earned Best Supporting Actress trophies at the 42nd Baeksang Arts Awards and the 25th Korean Association of Film Critics Awards. The following year, she appeared in another award-winning movie titled Family Ties, which won her Best Supporting Actress at the 27th Blue Dragon Film Awards. In 2013, she was named Best Actress at the 14th Busan Film Critics Awards for the film Our Sunhi. In 2014, she was cast in the KBS2 romantic comedy Discovery of Romance, opposite Eric. She won an Excellence Award, the Netizen Award, and the Best Couple Award with Eric at the 2014 KBS Drama Awards for her performance in the series. In 2016, she joined Gong Yoo in the cast of the hit zombie apocalypse film Train to Busan. In 2019, she and Gong Yoo worked together again in the movie Kim Ji-young: Born 1982, in which she collected several Best Actress citations from various award-giving bodies.

Jung Yumi is close friends with her labelmate Gong Yoo, with whom she has worked with several times in the past.