Sky News political editor to take over from Kamal Ahmed

Faisal Islam

Faisal Islam

Sky News political editor Faisal Islam has joined the BBC as economics editor, stepping into the role vacated by the recently promoted Kamal Ahmed.

Ahmed was appointed BBC news editorial director in July in a wide-ranging reshuffle that merged the daily news, channels and online/mobile teams under head of news output Gavin Allen.

From the new year, Islam will report daily on economic happenings in the UK and pen the BBC’s economics blog and will contribute to documentaries and “other landmark programming”, according to director of news and current affairs Fran Unsworth.

She said Islam would be “at the forefront of our reporting and presenting of economics”.

Islam said: “It is a great honour to be taking up this crucial role at the BBC at this critical moment in the country’s economic history.

“I am at heart a numbers man and I look forward to sharing the numbers stories that matter for all of the BBC’s viewers, listeners and readers over the years to come.”

Kicking off his career in the newspaper industry, Islam then spent 10 years as Channel 4’s economics editor before moving to Sky News in 2014.

He moderated last year’s general election special on C4, which was produced by Sky News, and won an RTS Award for his grilling of former prime minister David Cameron.