Stephen McKay

Stephen Douglas McKay (born 3 May 1968) is a British academic and between 2013 and 2024 the first Distinguished Professor of Social Research at the University of Lincoln. McKay is one of Britain's foremost social policy researchers, his work having helped to redefine how poverty is measured.

Early life McKay was born at the Aldershot General Hospital in Aldershot in Hampshire in 1968, the son of Angela née Lindsay, a sales assistant, and Paul McKay, a roof tiler. His siblings are Glenn McKay (born 1966) and Rachael McKay (born 1972). Stephen McKay attended Heron Wood Boys' School in Aldershot before attending Pembroke College at the University of Oxford (1986–1989) where he gained a First Class Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, Politics and Economics. and a leading member of Birmingham's Third Sector Research Centre. 'When 4 ≈ 10,000: The Power of Social Science Knowledge in Predictive Performance' (2019); 'Has lockdown strengthened marriages?' (2020); and 'Parents in lockdown' (2020).

McKay was awarded the Progress Prize by Princeton University in 2017 for his work in predicting layoffs in the Fragile Families Challenge. He is an external examiner for the Bachelor of Science degree in social policy at the London School of Economics and is a Fellow of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Peer Review College