Tom Wilkinson

Chief Data Officer
Tom is the Chief Data Officer at the Scottish Government, with extensive hands-on experience working across Data Science, Data Analysis, Data Architecture, Software Development and Data Engineering. With his wealth of experience working in various UK government departments, he has spent several years developing and improving organisations’ use of data to inform policy and operational decisions.

He started his career in government as an Operational Researcher where he drafted the first frameworks for recruiting Data Scientists into government and subsequently joined the Home Office as a Data Scientist. Tom moved to the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) as their Head of Management Information (MI) and Analytics, helping introduce self-service data and establishing the ONS Data Science Hub in East Kilbride.

He is passionate about improving public institutions and has a keen interest in using data science and behavioural social science to design fairer institutions that make better use of people's collective intelligence.

Tom holds a PhD in Complexity Economics and the Philosophy of Statistics, which has equipped him with a deep understanding of complex systems and emergent behaviour. He is fascinated by the implications of machine learning for epistemology and decentralised decision-making systems.

He is passionate about helping the Scottish Government realise the potential of its data and looks forward to achieving this goal collaboratively with his colleagues.