MPC composition

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee has nine members: the Governor, the Deputy Governors for Monetary Policy, Markets and Banking, and Financial Stability, the Bank’s Chief Economist, and four External MPC members appointed by the Chancellor. All nine are voters at every meeting — the BoE is the only major central bank tracked by the Hawkometer with no rotating voting structure, which makes the index especially clean here.

The current line-up tracked by the Hawkometer is Andrew Bailey (Governor), Clare Lombardelli (Deputy Governor, Monetary Policy), Dave Ramsden (Deputy Governor, Markets), Sarah Breeden (Deputy Governor, Financial Stability), Huw Pill (Chief Economist), and the External members Megan Greene, Catherine Mann, Swati Dhingra and Alan Taylor.

Where the committee sits right now

The MPC’s voter-weighted Hawkometer score over the last twelve months:

Speaker-by-speaker scores

A few patterns that recur on the BoE scatter:

• Externals provide most of the dispersion. Catherine Mann and Megan Greene typically anchor the hawkish wing, while Swati Dhingra has consistently been the most dovish member. Alan Taylor, the most recent External appointment, has settled to the dovish side of neutral.
• Bailey holds the centre. Like Lagarde and Powell, the Governor’s role is to articulate the consensus, so his Hawkometer score sits closer to zero than that of any individual member.
• Pill speaks frequently and matters. The Chief Economist’s regular regional speeches are one of the highest-frequency inputs to the index. His language is followed closely by sterling rates desks and is often a leading indicator of the next staff projection round.

Recent speeches and current shifts

The MPC tradition of External members publicly disagreeing with the consensus makes the BoE Hawkometer unusually informative. When the Externals collectively shift in one direction — as the shift indicator captures — it tends to be a stronger signal than a similar shift among the internal members.

Upcoming MPC appearances

Set-piece events that move the BoE Hawkometer most:

• The Monetary Policy Report press conference at every other meeting.
• Treasury Select Committee evidence sessions.
• Mansion House speeches by the Governor.
• The BoE Watchers Conference at King’s College London.
• Major speeches at the Society of Professional Economists and the Resolution Foundation.

External members typically give one major regional speech per quarter. Those tend to be the cleanest source of policy substance because Externals do not need to articulate a committee consensus — they advocate for their own view.

How this connects to rate decisions

The MPC publishes its vote split with every decision. Reading the Hawkometer alongside the historical vote split is one of the more powerful uses of this page: a member whose 90-day Hawkometer score is moving but whose vote has not yet flipped is a candidate to deliver a surprise dissent at the next meeting. Pair this with our BoE meeting preview and the Bank Rate probability tool for a complete picture.

Limitations specific to the BoE

• Externals’ speeches are sparse. External MPC members give fewer speeches than the internal members, so their Hawkometer scores are based on smaller samples and are more sensitive to a single appearance. We mitigate this with a 90-day window, but readers should weight individual External readings less aggressively than internal readings.
• The Governor’s public role is unusually constrained. Bailey speaks in public less often than Powell or Lagarde, which limits the index’s resolution on the centre of the committee. Press-conference appearances therefore carry more weight in the BoE index than in the Fed or ECB equivalents.

For the full scoring methodology and phrase library, see the Hawkometer methodology page.