Kate Barker
British economist, academic
Dame Katharine Mary Barker (born 1957) is a British economist. She is principally noted for her role at the Bank of England and for advising the British government on social issues such as housing and health care.
Early career
Barker grew up in Stoke-on-Trent. She received a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St Hilda's College, Oxford in 1979 and then worked for a large pension fund in London. She was a research officer at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (1981–85) and was the chief European economist at the Ford Motor Company in Brentwood (1985–94). From 1994 to 2001, she was chief economic adviser at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). She was also a member of the HM Treasury's Panel of Independent Economic Advisers 1996–97; and a non-executive director of the Yorkshire Building Society (1999 – April 2001).
Barker served as an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England from 2001 until the end of May 2010. She was the first external MPC member appointed for three terms and did not seek a fourth term.
Housing, social care and other policy work
Barker was appointed by the Government in April 2003 to conduct an independent Review of UK Housing Supply, leading to a final report in March 2004.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6375353. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1979, 1981 and 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kate Barker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.