Chris Wormald

Christopher Wormald (born 30 October 1968) is a British civil servant, serving since 2012 as the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education. In 2016 he will move to the same role in the Department of Health.

Educated at Rutlish School in Merton and then St John's College, Oxford, Wormald joined the Civil Service in 1991 into the Department for Education (later the Department for Education and Employment). Rising to Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills from 2001 until 2004, he then worked on the Academies programme.

Wormald transferred in 2006 to the newly formed Department for Communities and Local Government, promoted to be the Director-General of Local Government and Regeneration. In 2009, he moved to the Cabinet Office as the Head of the Economic and Domestic Affairs Secretariat, taking over from Paul Britton. Following the general election in 2010 and the consequent change of the position of the Deputy Prime Minister, he additionally became the Head of the Deputy Prime Minister's Office.

In March 2012, Wormald left the Cabinet Office to return to the Department for Education as its Permanent Secretary, replacing Sir David Bell who had retired to be the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading. As of 2015, Wormald was paid a salary of between £160,000 and £164,999 by DCLG, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time. In January 2016 it was announced that Wormald would move to the Department of Health later in 2016, where he will replace Dame Una O'Brien after her retirement as the permanent secretary there.