Professor Peter Saville

Founder and Chairman

BA (Hons), MPhil, PhD, HonDrSc, HonFBPsS, C.Psychol, FBPsS, CSci, AcademicFCIPD, FInstSM, FRSA, FIoD

Peter Saville is arguably the best known, most successful and highly acclaimed Psychologist within the Business Psychology Profession. The British Psychological Society (BPS) states, “Peter Saville established Britain as a centre for psychometric testing and is responsible for cementing fair and objective assessment in Human Resources across the world. As a skilled psychometrician and visionary leader, Peter Saville has made a significant impact on professional psychology in the UK and beyond. The widespread use of his tests by major companies and public bodies is testament to his remarkable ideas.”

With a usage of some 50 million of his measures of ability, personality, motivation and talent annually, Peter has been described as “One of the most influential Psychologists of our time”. He founded SHL in 1977 where he developed the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ) and the first commercial Big 5 Personality measure. Peter floated SHL on the main London stock exchange in 1997. In 1999 Peter was cited as the only Occupational Psychologist in the list of Britain’s Top Ten Psychologists. In 2001 Peter’s portrait hung in the National Portrait Gallery, London, after being presented with the British Psychology Society Centenary Award for Distinguished Contributions to Professional Psychology. Peter went on to found Saville Consulting (now Saville Assessment), where he developed the Saville Wave questionnaire. The company was acquired by Willis Towers Watson in 2015. Already a Fellow, in 2012 Peter received the highest BPS award, Honorary Fellowship, in recognition of his work in “Flying the flag for Britain for objective assessment” and “Creating the global gold standard for psychometric tests”. In 2014, Peter was awarded Academic Fellowship of the CIPD, their highest honour. Peter has written over 200 publications and spoken in over 60 countries worldwide. Peter was Professor of Psychology at Queen’s University, Belfast and is currently Professor of Leadership Studies at Kingston University, London.

Peter’s interests include a wide range of sports and watching his young twins, Jack and Faye, playing rugby, squash, tennis and lacrosse. He enjoys military history and music ranging from Pink Floyd, Blues and Soul, particularly Ray Charles. His memoirs ‘Testing Times: Psychologist at Work’ will be published in 2020.