Carbon fibre (CF) embedded into elastomeric media has been attracting incredible interest as flexible strain sensors in the application of skin electronics owing to their high sensitivity in a very small strain gauge. To further improve the sensitivity of CF/PDMS composite strain sensor, the relatively low temperature prepared TiO₂ nanowire via hydrothermal route was employed herein to functionalize CF. The results showed a significant increase in the sensitivity of the TiO₂@CF/PDMS composite strain sensors which was reflected by the calculated gauge factor. As the prepared TiO₂ nanowire vertically embraced the surroundings of the CF, the introduced TiO₂ nanowire contributed to a highly porous structure which played a predominant role in improving the sensitivity of strain sensors. Moreover, the significant strain rate dependent behavior of TiO₂@CF/PDMS strain sensor was revealed when performing monotonic tests at varied strain rate. Therefore, introducing TiO₂ nanowire on CF offers a new technique for fabricating flexible strain sensors with improved sensitivity for the application of flexible electronics.