He joined the Met in 2012 as HR director before taking on a wider people and change portfolio from 2014. He moved into his latest role in 2018.
Reporting to the commissioner, Wilkinson’s role ensures frontline policing remains efficient and effective. He has provided board-level leadership for a substantial transformation portfolio involving 12 major programmes covering organisation design, technology transformation, estates modernisation, new customer access points and people development. These have enabled the Met to respond positively and confidently to substantial budget cuts while facing significant increases in both the volume and complexity of crime demand.
He has led from design through to delivery a substantial leadership and cultural change programme (Leading for London) providing leadership development to all 10,000 leaders and managers in the Met to improve employee engagement and operational policing outcomes to the public. His teams have transformed police officer recruitment, onboarding, promotion and progression processes and enabled greater diversity within the workforce. Comprehensive post-incident trauma support strategies have been used extensively to support officers and staff affected by a range of significant operational incidents in London in recent years.
Prior to joining the Met Wilkinson was HR director of the prison service for England and Wales in 2006, and from 2010 held the joint role of group HRD for the Ministry of Justice and HR director for the National Offender Management Service. In those roles he led substantial changes to the employee relations environment, implemented a new people strategy, and championed inclusion and diversity.
Wilkinson is a non-executive director on the board of the College of Policing.
He is married with four children.
