David Spiegelhalter

Why organisations work with Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter

• His named frameworks – the “micromort” (a one-in-a-million unit of risk) and “microlife” – give non-technical leaders a usable vocabulary for discussing probability and relative risk. That vocabulary changes how organisations communicate uncertainty internally, not just in a keynote room.
• The Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, which he chaired at Cambridge, ran controlled experiments on how different ways of presenting uncertainty affect trust and decision quality. His approach is built on tested research into what actually changes how audiences respond to evidence.
• His two Pelican bestsellers, The Art of Statistics (2019) and The Art of Uncertainty (2024) – named Best Book of the Year by both Forbes and The Economist – demonstrate an unusually rare ability: making genuinely complex statistical argument accessible to any senior audience, not just specialists.
• He played a leading statistical role in several of the UK’s most consequential public inquiries, including the Shipman murders, the Bristol Royal Infirmary children’s heart surgery case, and the Infected Blood Inquiry. He understands firsthand what happens when statistical evidence is ignored, contested, or misread at institutional level.
• As a Non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority, he operates at the intersection of regulatory scrutiny, data quality, and public accountability – experience that is directly relevant to any board discussion about evidence governance or public reporting.

Biography highlights

• Emeritus Professor of Statistics, University of Cambridge; former Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk (2007-2018)
• Knighted 2014 for services to medical statistics; OBE 2006; Fellow of the Royal Society (elected 2005)
• President, Royal Statistical Society, 2017-2018; Non-Executive Director, UK Statistics Authority
• Author of The Art of Statistics (Pelican, 2019), published in eleven languages, and The Art of Uncertainty (Pelican, 2024), named Best Book of the Year by Forbes and The Economist
• Presented BBC Four documentaries Tails You Win: The Science of Chance and the award-winning Climate Change by Numbers; appeared on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs (2022)
• Guest columnist for The Times, The Guardian, and New Scientist; host of podcast Risky Talk; leading statistical contributor to the Shipman, Bristol Royal Infirmary, and Infected Blood public inquiries

Biography

Statistical evidence routinely gets stripped of its uncertainty before it reaches the people who need to act on it. By the time a risk figure reaches a boardroom, its limitations have usually been smoothed over. David Spiegelhalter has spent his career examining why this happens, and what it costs.

As Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge from 2007 to 2018, and then as Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, Spiegelhalter ran research programmes designed to test how different ways of presenting uncertainty affect trust and decision quality. His framework treats the communication of uncertainty not as a messaging problem but as an evidence question – one with measurable consequences for how organisations are perceived and trusted.

His work has extended into the most consequential institutional settings. He played a leading statistical role in the public inquiries into Harold Shipman’s murders, the Bristol Royal Infirmary children’s heart surgery case, and the Infected Blood Inquiry. As a Non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority, he sits at the intersection of regulatory oversight, data quality, and public accountability.

His two Pelican bestsellers – The Art of Statistics (2019) and The Art of Uncertainty (2024), named Best Book of the Year by Forbes and The Economist – show that serious statistical argument can reach a mainstream audience without dilution. The Art of Statistics has been published in eleven languages. Knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, Spiegelhalter brings a combination of research depth, regulatory experience, and communication skill that is genuinely rare.

Key speaking topics

• Risk communication and statistical evidence
• Communicating uncertainty to non-technical audiences
• Data literacy and probabilistic thinking
• Trust in numbers and institutional credibility
• Statistical evidence in public policy
• Evidence-based decision-making
• Medical statistics and health data

Ideal for

• Boards and non-executive directors with risk oversight responsibilities
• C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating complex evidence and forecasting
• Risk, compliance, and regulatory affairs functions
• Public sector leaders and policy teams that rely on statistical evidence

Audience outcomes

• A clearer understanding of how to read and challenge statistical claims in briefings and reports
• Practical frameworks for communicating uncertainty to boards, regulators, or the public without losing credibility
• Sharper awareness of the specific ways risk data gets misrepresented, and the capacity to detect it
• A reframing of uncertainty as a communicable, manageable fact rather than a weakness to conceal
• Better questions to bring to any high-stakes decision that rests on probabilistic or statistical evidence