Simon James is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Political Economy, having previously been a Visiting Research Fellow since 2015. He has been a part-time lecturer to Masters’ degree courses in the department since 2020 and served on the College Research Ethics Committee from 2019 to 2022.

He is the author of Prime Minister and Cabinet Government (Routledge, 3rd edition 2020), the standard text on the subject, and of numerous other books, chapters and articles published in journals including Public Administration, Public Law, Policy Studies and Parliamentary Affairs.

He has also authored research reports commissioned by the OECD and the World Bank and has contributed to publications of those organisations and of the United Nations Development Programme and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

A graduate of the London School of Economics, Simon worked from 1982 to 2001 as a public servant in, successively, London local government, the Department for Education and Employment, the Cabinet Secretariat (working on the Blair government's constitutional reform programme) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. He returned to Whitehall 2021-25 to work in the Government’s Modernisation and Reform Unit.

From 2001 to 2021 he was a freelance adviser to governments in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, including extended spells in Kosovo, Ukraine, Somalia, northern Cyprus and Antigua, employed mainly by the World Bank, the British government and the European Commission. He specialises in central government policy-making, particularly the reform of Prime Ministers' Offices and Cabinet Secretariats; he also works on many other aspects of political and civil service reform, and public policy management.

Since retiring from the civil service in 2025 he has returned to international work and his most recent assignments have been with the governments of Ghana and North Macedonia and advice on supporting governance reform in the South Caucasus.

His current research interests are coalitions and minority governments in the UK and the politics surrounding the Coronation of 2023.