Former footballer Paul Wilkinson joined Norwich City as Under-21 Academy coach in the autumn of 2014.

He started his career with Grimsby Town before moving to Everton in March 1985. During the 1986–87 season he made 32 appearances and scored 12 goals for Everton, as they won the Football League First Division championship. He made a total of 42 league appearances for the Toffees. After a short spell at Nottingham Forest (43 appearances) he went on to play over 150 league games for both Watford (155) and Middlesbrough (202).

He played more than 200 times for Middlesbrough between 1991 and 1996, his most successful season being his first, in which he scored 24 goals - the last coming in the final minutes of the last league game of the season at Wolverhampton Wanderers, in which he scored a last minute winner to secure Middlesbrough's automatic promotion to the new FA Premier League. He was also the scorer of the club's first Premier League goal, scoring a 63rd minute consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat at Coventry City on the opening day of the season.

He had loan spells at Oldham in 1995 (5 appearances), Watford in 1995 (4 appearancs) and Luton (3 appearances) before leaving Boro.

In 1997 he helped Barnsley reach the Premier League, scoring one of the goals in the game against Bradford City at Oakwell that sealed their automatic promotion. He moved to Millwall in 1997, making 35 appearances for the Lions and finished his career at Northampton (19 appearances).

After retiring from playing he moved into coaching by taking over as the reserve team manager at Leeds United before moving on to the same role at Grimsby Town and then Cardiff City in October 2003, being brought in by manager Lennie Lawrence. He was then Assistant Manager at Sheffield Wednesday. He took his current position as a coach at the Norwich City Academy in October 2014.

A restructuring in the Academy in July 2015 saw Wilkinson depart Norwich.

He then coached Barnsley's Under-21s before joining Northampton on June 13th 2016 as assistant to Rob Page. He was later caretaker manager at Northampton after Page's sacking in January 2017.

In April 2017, he was appointed as Assistant Managr at Grimsby, working with new manager Russell Slade.

In March 2019, he joined National League side Truro City as manager after Leigh Robinson was sacked. However he could not prevent them from being relegated following a 3-3 draw with Slough on the last day of the season (27th April 2019). He signed a new two year contract with Truro in mid-June 2019 but two weeks later became Bury's new manager on 2nd July 2019. Wilkinson said "Bury is a club with a great history. I can't wait to get started. I'm determined to drive the club forward in the right direction."

He left Bury after they were expelled from the Football League.

He was capped four times by England Under-21s, scoring once.