Karl Hoods

Part of the IT Leaders 100 - a list of the most influential IT leaders in the UK in 2026.

Karl is an award-winning Chief Digital & Information Officer with 20+ years leading large-scale technology transformation across government, education and non-profit. He has a proven record of delivering multi-million-pound digital portfolios, establishing shared services across multiple organisations, and modernising core infrastructure at national scale.

Karl is recognised for driving innovation and creating commercial value through vendor optimisation and platform reuse.

What's the most exciting part of your current role?

Delivering across multiple public sector organisations, keeping critical infrastructure running and delivering key services for the public.

Also getting to work with brilliant colleagues and expert suppliers all wanting to make a difference across energy, science and innovation.

What do you do in week one of a new project to avoid pain in month six?

Bring everyone together to foster the right environment and set up for success. Whilst there can be difficult technology choices to make the most important aspect of delivery is people pulling together to achieve the outcome. That requires the right culture to be able to challenge and support.

What’s the part of your estate you most want to simplify in 2026?

Our simplification agenda has progressed well, and as we onboard more government departments in 2026 we are looking to continuously improve all aspects; in particular identity management across multiple services, as well as building out a more comprehensive data management platform to provide an information as a service offering to support other initiatives including AI.

Excluding smartphones, what piece of technology could you not live without and why?

My Garmin Watch! Provides all sorts of valuable data / metrics across exercise and health.

What excites you most about the future of IT?

The potential for future generations to use technology in ways we haven't thought of. Having been involved in education in a voluntary capacity for 15 years there's much more we could and should do to bring the impact and potential of technology to life to inspire tech leaders of the future. The curriculum doesn't do that, so as a community we ought to step in and do more.

What talent are you quietly proud of that would never show up on LinkedIn?

My emerging DJ skills!

What’s your most-used keyboard shortcut or command that you wish everyone knew?

Windows+Shift+S