Writer, public speaker and broadcaster Matthew Taylor CBE is well known as the chief executive of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), for his role as Chief Advisor on Strategy to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and as a regular panellist on Radio 4’s Moral Maze.

Taylor is in high demand as a popular public speaker on topics including social trends, public service reform and education policy, and he has chaired conferences and lectures for the RSA, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Cabinet Office. Taylor is a regular media performer, often appearing on the Today programme, The Daily Politics and Newsnight, and has presented Radio 4 current affairs programme Analysis on several occasions. Also a prolific writer, Taylor has a monthly column with the Local Government Chronicle and his articles are regularly published in the national press.

The son of broadcaster and sociologist Laurie Taylor and historian Jennie Howells, Taylor began his career as a Labour Party Warwickshire county councillor, before becoming a Campaign Co-ordinator and Director of Policy during the Labour Party’s 1997 general election campaign. His career in politics went from strength to strength, and Labour Prime Minister appointed Taylor as head of the Number 10 Policy Unit in 2003, where he drew up the Labour Party’s manifesto for the May 2005 general election, going on to become Chief Adviser on Strategy to the Prime Minister.

Since leaving politics in 2006, Taylor took on the role of chief executive of the RSA, an organisation that helps find innovative solutions to modern social challenges. In 2017 Prime Minister Teresa May commissioned Taylor to publish his report on modern employment, ‘Good Work’, and two years later he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to employee rights.