Sir Robert Andrew Burns KCMG (born 21 July 1943) is a British former diplomat in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

[2] Burns served with the Diplomatic Service between 1965 and 2003, beginning his career as an Urdu and Hindi speaker at the British High Commission in New Delhi in the 1960s.

[8] He was Chair of Council of Royal Holloway, a constituent college of the University of London.

[1] He was appointed to succeed Lady Deech as the chair of the Bar Standards Board from 1 January 2015.

[9] Burns was also previously Chairman of the China Association between 2008 and 2014 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA).