Trevor Taylor

Trevor Taylor is Professorial Research Fellow in Defence Management at RUSI, where he heads up a research programme in Defence, Industries and Society, and is a member of the Acquisition Focus group which publishes regularly in RUSI Defence Systems.

In addition, he is professor emeritus at Cranfield University, where he still teaches, and where he was head of the Department of Defence Management and Security Analysis from 1997-2009. He also works regularly for the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, where he is an adjunct faculty member.

His career has linked the academic sphere with that of governmental and industrial professionals in defence, and he speaks and writes regularly at conferences on defence acquisition and management. A joint author of a book on UK defence industry, he was for six years an elected Council Member of the former Defence Manufacturers' Association.

He was previously Professor of International Relations at Staffordshire University and from 1990-93 was head of the International Security Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London.  

Trevor Taylor is Director of the Defence, Industries & Society Programme at RUSI where he has worked since 2009. In 2022-3 he was the special adviser to the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee inquiry into military shipbuilding in Scotland and has served as the Special Adviser to the Committee on Arms Export Controls.

He also works regularly on a consultancy basis for the Institute of Security Governance which is based at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. He is Emeritus Professor of Cranfield University at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham where he led the defence management department for 12 years. He is a regular commentator to national and international media and speaker at conferences on defence acquisition and industrial issues.

He has more than 30 years’ experience of working with government and business in the defence and security area as an academic and consultant. In contrasting roles, he has been an assessor in the national research evaluation exercises, Chairman of the British International Studies Association, and an elected Council Member of the former Defence Manufacturers Association. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of Make UK Defence, an association particularly serving small & medium sized entities.

From 1990 to the end of 1993 he headed the International Security programme at Chatham House.

He was educated at the London School of Economics (BSc (Econ) and PhD) and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania (MA).