During his tenure the Society has substantially increased its output of research and innovation, provided new routes to support the charitable initiatives of its 30,000 fellows, and developed a global profile as a platform for ideas.
Prior to this Taylor was director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, and he then became chief adviser on political strategy to then-prime ministerTony Blair. Previous roles also included, Labour Party director of policy, and assistant general secretary of the Labour Party.
In July 2017 Taylor published the report Good work; an independent review into modern employment, commissioned by the UK prime minister.
In September 2019 Taylor started a new part-time role as the government’s director of labour market enforcement and is also a member of its Industrial Strategy Council.
Taylor is a regular media commentator having appeared several times on the Today programme, The Daily Politics and Newsnight. He has written and presented several Radio Four documentaries and is a panellist on the programme Moral Maze. He has posted more than a thousand times on his RSA blog site and tweets as @RSAMatthew.
He is also senior editor of the Thames & Hudson's The Big Idea series.