Nicholas Hytner is to step down as director of the National Theatre.

Sir Nicholas announced on Wednesday that he would leave the role at the end of March 2015.

His time at the South Bank venue has seen the theatre produce international hits including One Man, Two Guvnors, The History Boys and Warhorse.

Shows have covered subjects including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the financial crisis.

Sir Nicholas said: “It’s been a joy and a privilege to lead the National Theatre for ten years and I’m looking forward to the next two.

"I have the most exciting and most fulfilling job in the English-speaking theatre; and after 12 years it will be time to give someone else a turn to enjoy the company of my stupendous colleagues, who together make the National what it is.”

Under Sir Nicholas's leadership the National has featured a number of Jewish productions, including Ryan Craig's Edgware-set The Holy Rosenbergs, Tadeusz Słobodzianek's Holocaust play Our Class, Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years, Antony Sher's Primo - an adaptation of Primo Levi's If This Is A Man - and Richard Bean's East End immigration play England People Very Nice, which featured hora-dancing Chasids.

Sir Nicholas is only the second artistic director to have run the theatre for more than 10 years - Sir Peter Hall having led it for 15 years.

He will oversee the end of the National's capital project which will see the Cottesloe stage re-open, rebuilt as the Dorfman.

The theatre will be named after Jewish philanthropist Lloyd Dorfman. The project has been a key part of Sir Nicholas's work to democratise theatre and broaden the National's audience.