William Nicholas Hutton (born 21 May 1950, Woolwich) is an English writer, weekly columnist and former editor-in-chief for The Observer. He is currently executive vice-chair of The Work Foundation (formerly the Industrial Society), having been Chief Executive from 2000 to 2008.
Hutton began his education in Scotland. His father had worked at the Royal Ordnance factory (Royal Arsenal) in Woolwich. He went to Bishopton Primary School in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, then Paisley Grammar School when he was eight. His father moved to Bromley, then in Kent, and he went to Southborough Lane County Primary School in Petts Wood.
Hutton studied at Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School in Sidcup, where he was introduced to A level economics by a teacher, Garth Pinkney. He only got average marks at O-level, but enjoyed the sixth form much more, studying Geography, History and Economics. He organised the school tennis team. After studying Sociology and Economics at the University of Bristol gaining a BSocSc (2.1), he started his career as an equity salesman for a stock broker, before leaving to study for a MBA at INSEAD at Fontainebleau near Paris.
He moved on to work in television and radio, spending ten years with the BBC, including working as economics correspondent for Newsnight from 1983 to 1988. He spent four years as editor-in-chief at The Observer and director of the Guardian National Newspapers before joining the Industrial Society, now known as The Work Foundation.
Hutton joined The Work Foundation as chief executive in 2000 when it was named the Industrial Society. As well as a columnist, author and Chief Executive, he is a governor of London School of Economics, a visiting professor at the University of Manchester Business School and the University of Bristol, a visiting fellow at Mansfield College Oxford, a trustee of the Scott Trust that owns the Guardian Media Group, rapporteur of the Kok Group and a member of the Design Council's Millennium Commission.
The analysis in his books is characterised by a support for the European Union and its potential, alongside a disdain for what he calls American conservatism – defined, among other factors, as a certain attitude to markets, property and the social contract. In 1992, he won the What The Papers Say award for Political Journalist of the Year.
In May 2010, Hutton was appointed to lead an inquiry into cutting top public sector pay by Prime Minister David Cameron. In 2003 he was made an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) by Bristol University.
As an author, his best known and most influential works are The State We're In (an economic and political look at Britain in the 1990s from a social democratic point of view) and The World We're In (where he expanded his focus to the relationship between the United States and Europe, emphasising cultural and social differences between the two blocs).
Hutton's book The Writing On The Wall was released in the UK in January 2007. The book examines Western concerns and responses to the rise of China and the emerging global division of labour, and argues that the Chinese economy is running up against a set of increasingly unsustainable contradictions that could have a damaging universal fallout. On 18 February 2007, Hutton was a featured guest in BBC's Have Your Say programme discussing the implications of China's growth.
Hutton married in 1978 and lives near Woodstock in Oxfordshire. He has a son and two daughters. His wife, Jane Atkinson, is a director of a property development company called First Premise based in Richmond upon Thames, which she founded in 1987.
The Writing On The Wall China and the West in the 21st Century (2007) ISBN 978-0-316-73018-1
Trust: From Socrates to Spin (2004) Kieron O'Hara, Will Hutton (introduction) ISBN 1-84046-531-X
A Declaration of Interdependence: Why America Should Join the World (2003) ISBN 0-393-05725-9 WW Norton & Company
The World We're In (2002) ISBN 0-316-85871-4
Global Capitalism (2000) Will Hutton (editor), Anthony Giddens (editor) ISBN 1-56584-648-6
On the Edge: Essays on a Runaway World (2000) Anthony Giddens (editor), Will Hutton (editor) ISBN 0-224-05937-8
The Stakeholding Society: Writings on Politics and Economics (1998) ISBN 0-7456-2078-7
The State to Come (1997) ISBN 0-09-977881-5
The State We're in: Why Britain Is in Crisis and How to Overcome It (1995) ISBN 0-224-03688-2
The Revolution That Never Was: An Assessment of Keynesian Economics (1986) ISBN 0-582-29603-X
News items
Will Hutton is the Left-wing commentator famed for his attacks on Britain's landlord culture ... yet his family's housing empire is a monument to the profit motive Telegraph, 18 April 2004
Video clips
At Unions21 in September 2008
The Orwell Prize 2008
Institute of Directors Conference 2007
The Great Debate: What is radical poltiics today? Discussion with Anthony Giddens and Jonathan Pugh, December 2008
