John O'Leary is a journalist and education consultant, who works for a variety of newspapers and magazines, universities and national organizations. He edited The Times Higher Education Supplement from 2002 until 2007 and was Education Editor of The Times for ten years before that. He joined the newspaper in 1990 as Higher Education Correspondent. From 2008 to 2010, he edited the monthly Policy Review magazine and in 2011 won the Ted Wragg Award for Sustained Contribution to Education Journalism.

He writes regularly on education for The Times, Education Journal and Higher Education World, and is a frequent speaker at international conferences. He also edits The Times Good University Guide, which has been published annually since 1993, and is co-author of the Top Universities Guide, first published in 2006, which includes the QS World University Rankings. He is a member of the executive board responsible for the rankings.

John O’Leary is the author of Higher Education in England, published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in 2009, and was a member of the Government inquiry into primary school testing in 1999. He is married with three adult children. He began his career on the Evening Chronicle, in Newcastle upon Tyne, after a year as president of the students’ union at Sheffield University, where he took an honours degree in politics. He was at the Times Higher Education Supplement throughout the 1980s, becoming deputy editor.