Nick Barley is Director of The Lighthouse, Scotland's national Architecture and Design Centre and was also director of the recent Six Cities Design Festival.

Nick began his career with architectural publishers Wordsearch as deputy publisher and, from 1994, publisher of a stable of publications including Blueprint, Eye, Design Review, Tate Magazine, Perspectives, and Reportage. In 1998 he set up August Publications, and through this company has since published and edited a series of ground breaking books on architecture including the original book on The Lighthouse (published as part of Glasgow 1999); a book on Benson + Forsyth's Museum of Scotland; Rick Poynor's Obey  the Giant, a series of books on urbanism including Breathing Cities: Impossible Worlds; City Levels and Experiments in Architecture and, most recently, the catalogue for the 2006 London Architecture Biennale.
 
As a curator and exhibition manager Nick Barley has project managed and designed a number of keynote exhibitions including Citroen DS: La Deesse (Design Museum 1991).

Barley has twice been on the Advisory Group for the UK wide Architecture Week events.

Prior to his appointment as Director of the Lighthouse Nick Barley was editor of The List Magazine for which work he was named Editor of the Year in the PPA Scotland Magazine Awards in 2005.