Will Hutton

Will Hutton is a political economist, author, academic/thinktank leader and Observer columnist. He is currently President of the Academy of Social Sciences (2021–), hosts the We Society podcast, and writes a regular column for The Observer. He co-chairs the Purposeful Company (2015–), whose 2025 Growth Trilogy has been widely applauded for its analysis of the strengths and threats to Britain’s innovation economy. He also chairs the advisory board of the Fairness Foundation (2022–).

As one of the leading economics commentators in the UK, Will is regularly called on to advise senior political and business figures and comment in the national and international media. His career spans a period as an investment banker, Economics Editor of BBC2 Newsnight and The Guardian, Editor in Chief of The Observer and was Chief Executive of The Work Foundation from 2000 to 2008.

Will has chaired two government commissions – one on public sector pay for the coalition government in 2011 and one on the creative industries for the Labour government in 2007. He was rapporteur for the EU’s Kok Commission in 2004, and was one of ‘twelve wise men and women’ to reflect on the future of Europe at the request of President Prodi in 2002. He has chaired four think tanks – the Employment Policy Institute, the Work Foundation, the Big Innovation Centre and the Purposeful Company. He was a trustee of the Scott Trust from 2006 to 2017.

His many bestselling books include The Revolution That Never Was (1986), The State We’re In (1995), The World We’re In (2000), with Tony Giddens On The Edge (2001), The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century (2008), Them and Us (2011), How Good We Can Be (2015), and with Andrew Adonis Saving Britain: How We Can Prosper in a New European Future (2018). In 2024 he published This Time No Mistakes.