The director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and (from 1994) editor-in-chief of the BBC.

The post-holder was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC (for the period 1927 to 2007) and then the BBC Trust (from 2007 to 2017). Since 2017 the director-general has been appointed by the BBC Board.

To date, 17 individuals have been appointed director-general, plus an additional two who were appointed in an acting capacity only. The current director-general is Tim Davie, who succeeded Tony Hall on 1 September 2020.^[1]

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No.	Image	Director-General	Term of office		Length of term	Honour(s)
1		Sir John Reith	1 January 1927	30 June 1938	11 years	Knighted 1 January 1927, at the start of his term as DG.[2] Peerage 21 October 1940, after stepping down as DG.[3] Appointed to the Order of the Thistle 18 February 1969.[4]
2		Sir Frederick Ogilvie	19 July 1938	26 January 1942	3½ years	Knighted 10 June 1942, after stepping down as DG
3		Sir Cecil Graves and Robert Foot	26 January 1942	6 September 1943	19 months	Knighted 1939, before becoming DG
4		Robert Foot	6 September 1943	31 March 1944	7 months
5		Sir William Haley	1944	1952	8 years	Knighted 1946, during his term as DG
6		Sir Ian Jacob	1952	1959	7 years	Knighted 1 January 1960, after stepping down as DG
7		Sir Hugh Greene	1960	1969	9 years	Knighted 1964, during his term as DG
8		Sir Charles Curran	1969	1977	8 years	Knighted 1 January 1974, during his term as DG
9		Sir Ian Trethowan	1977	1982	5 years	Knighted 1980, during his term as DG
10		Alasdair Milne	1982	January 1987[lower-alpha 1]	5 years
11		Sir Michael Checkland	1987	1992	5 years
12		Sir John Birt	1992	2000	8 years	Knighted 27 October 1998[6] during his term as DG.
13		Greg Dyke	2000	29 January 2004	4 years
–		Mark Byford[lower-alpha 2]	January 2004	June 2004	5 months
14		Mark Thompson	22 June 2004	17 September 2012	8 years	Knighted 17 June 2023, after stepping down as DG.
15		George Entwistle	17 September 2012	10 November 2012	54 days
–		Tim Davie[lower-alpha 2]	11 November 2012	1 April 2013	141 days
16		Tony Hall, Baron Hall of Birkenhead	2 April 2013	31 August 2020[7][8]	7 years	Life peerage 19 March 2010, before appointment as DG.
17		Tim Davie	1 September 2020[1]	Incumbent

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Italics indicate that the individual was temporarily appointed as acting director-general.^[9]