Mike Boxall is a highly experienced and well-known adviser and commentator on the business of higher and further education. He currently leads PA Consulting Group’s services to the HE and FE sectors, having spent over 25 years consulting to universities, colleges, policy makers and private investors in the UK and overseas.

Mike’s advisory roles have usually focused on sector-wide and institutional strategy issues, and have ranged from numerous national policy reviews for HEFCE and other agencies to working with university leadership teams to assess, plan and implement responses to market and regulatory developments. He has worked with a large proportion of the HEIs across the UK and others in Europe and the Arabian Gulf, as well as with private providers of HE services and external investors assessing opportunities in the sector. His recent client list includes large research universities such as UCL, Warwick and Cranfield as well as smaller institutions and private providers.

Mike is particularly well known across the HE sector for his numerous publications, articles and conference presentations on the changing environment and business of higher education, which have often predicted developments before they arrived (such as the demise of grant funding for universities). His series of so-called Red Queen papers, published by PA Consulting, have proved influential on the thinking of leadership teams across the sector, while PA’s annual surveys of university vice-chancellors have tracked and anticipated the changing relationships between universities and government, among other developments.