Sean Hayes is a longstanding senior local government manager and team leader as well as being an educational researcher, data analyst and statistician. Up until recently, he managed a large team of more than 20 data analysts and researchers in Hounslow Council, covering Children’s & Adult’s Social Care and Education & Early Intervention. Since retiring from Hounslow Council in September 2021, he has taken up a part-time career as a freelance educational researcher and consultant. He has experience of doing educational research and writing research papers, articles and book chapters. He is an experienced public servant with a career spanning nearly 40 years in the public sector, 30 of which have been at managerial level. Sean has worked in six local authorities, four on a permanent basis and two in a consultancy capacity, the GLA, Cabinet Office and one educational charity. He has worked closely with schools since 1990 and is a governor at a secondary school in west London.

Sean was awarded an Honorary Norham Fellowship from the Education Department of the University of Oxford in 2017, in recognition of his work on educational research in the local authority context. He has been a Fellow of the RSA since 2012. Sean first encountered the British Educational Research Association (BERA) when he attended the annual conference in Bath in 1995. He has been a member of the Executive Council of BERA from 2008 to 2023 and has been Treasurer of BERA since September 2015.