Who are we?

Brierley Consultancy is run by Dr Peter Brierley. Peter works in a full time capacity and others join him on an ad hoc basis from time to time as appropriate. The aim of the Consultancy is to strengthen church leadership, in whatever way that may be appropriate.

Strengthening leadership includes providing key data for strategic planning, which often means undertaking research projects of either a quantitative or qualitative nature. Peter was the director of Christian Research from 1993 to 2007, and prior to that director of MARC Europe for 10 years. Those two organisations undertook a huge range of different types of research, locally, nationally and internationally. Of particular importance was the undertaking of national church censuses when every church in England, Scotland or Wales (and London in 2012) was asked to give details of numbers attending on a typical Sunday.

Brierley Consultancy also believes in interpreting research. Peter has written 12 books explaining the results of key research projects, as well as giving the implications of the findings, and how these might be applied in church or Christian agency situations.

Not all find working out the implications of research easy, so Peter has written 4 books on vision building, time management and other aspects of Christian leadership. In addition he has taken numerous seminars explaining the basics of his ideas.

Brierley Consultancy has also established a publishing company. ADBC publishers provide resource material for church leadership as well as material for supporting and encouraging leadership in often difficult circumstances.

In 1972 Peter began what later came to be called the UK Christian Handbook which as well as giving names and addresses and contact details of Christian agencies in the UK also provided statistical information on the changing nature of organisational life. It included detailed information on the many denominations in the UK, something which between 1998 and 2007 were published in 7 volumes of Religious Trends. This has been continued now under the title UK Church Statistics

After getting a scholarship through Eltham College, he gained a degree in statistics at University College London, then a diploma in theology at the Bible Training Institute, and after 3 years of teaching spent 11 years as a government statistician, 8 of which was with the Central Statistical Office, then part of the Cabinet Office. He was the first Head of the Survey Control Unit. He left the Civil Service in 1978 to become the Programme Director of the Bible Society, under Tom Houston’s overall leadership, through whom the first English Church Census was undertaken. Peter started MARC Europe in 1983.