The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, and the presiding judge of Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal, and of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court.

Originally, the three high common law courts, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of the King's (or Queen's) Bench, and the Court of the Exchequer, each had their own Chief Justice, who was, in the case of the Exchequer Court, styled as the Lord Chief Baron. The courts, however, were combined in 1873, leaving a single Lord Chief Justice.

There is also a Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. The Lord Chief Justice's equivalent in Scotland is the Lord President of the Court of Session, who also holds the post of Lord Justice-General of the High Court of Justiciary.

Presently the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the Lord Woolf.