Sir Tom will take up his appointment during September 2010. Sir Tom joined the FCO in 1983 having previously worked for the Department of Health and Social Security.

His first overseas posting was as first secretary in the British High Commission in Harare, and he returned to Africa as high commissioner in Uganda in 2000.

He has served as ambassador to Israel since 2006 and was previously the director responsible for Afghanistan and South Asia at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

After a posting to the British Embassy in Washington in the mid-1990s, he returned to London in 1997 to head the Foreign Office's Eastern Adriatic Department including through the period of the Kosovo crisis.

On his appointment as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sir Tom said: "I am delighted and honored to be given this opportunity to serve in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a country with which the UK shares extensive and close interests, and which plays a pivotal role both in the region and internationally."

Sir Tom is married to Anne de la Motte Phillips.