Jil Matheson

Jil Matheson was appointed as the UK National Statistician, Head of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority in September 2009. The latter role includes executive responsibility for the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Jil’s career in statistics began in 1975 at the then Office for Population Census and Surveys. Jil subsequently worked as a researcher, analyst and project manager for a number of different social surveys. In 2001 Jil was elected as a fellow of the Academy of Learned Societies in Social Science.

In 2002, Jil took the lead in the introduction of the UK National Statistics Code of Practice, and in 2003 moved to run the ONS Census Division. In 2004 Jil was appointed Director of Census, Demographic and Regional Statistics, and in 2008 became Director General for Statistics Delivery at ONS. In 2010, Jil was asked by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to lead a high profile programme of work to develop new measures of national well-being. In 2012, as well as becoming Chair of the OECD Committee on Statistics, Jil has become a member of the UN-ECE Bureau for the Conference of European Statisticians and Vice-Chair of the UN Statistics Commission.