Wilkinson, whose drop goal won the World Cup for England in 2003, said the foundations have been laid for Stuart Lancaster's team to build the momentum needed to launch a credible challenge at the tournament that gets underway next September.
"We are in a good place, a really good place," he told reporters at an event at St James' Park in Newcastle.
"The work has been done to create the platform to give the guys something solid to launch from in every game, and that gives you the consistency of knowing that you are going to be there and thereabouts even against the best.
"The rest, I guess, is what's being built and will be shown more and more this year against the big teams. You have got to win, you have got to learn how to win and get that momentum going.
"You need that path to keep moving upwards because that's the momentum you need."
Crucial to building that momentum will be the Autumn internationals in which England face southern hemisphere powerhouses New Zealand, South Africa and Australia as well as unpredictable Samoa.
Prior to lifting the World Cup, Wilkinson's England were all-conquering, winning every match in 2003 apart from one warm-up against France in Paris.
While the former flyhalf would love the current England team to repeat those performances, an unbeaten record, he says, will not be a defining factor in how the World Cup unfolds.
"Winning every game in the year before a World Cup does not guarantee you winning a World Cup," he said.
"There's a certain element of pride and passion and desire reflected in whether you want to win the Autumn Series and whether you want to win the Six Nations as well...
"We need to try to win those things. That will be a sign of the desire and the pride of the guys, so it is important.
"But for me, it's understanding that being in good form is much better than walking into the World Cup saying we have got an unbeaten record."
Wilkinson, who retired at the end of last season after a career that guaranteed him a place in the pantheon of the game's greats, feels the six-year contract extensions awarded to Lancaster and his assistant coaches this week could provide vital stability.
"It's nice to know you can have a bit of time to build and make the business case the right way, bottom first, make the foundations stronger and then build on top," he said.
"If you don't have that time, maybe you start to shoot from the top end first and you end up having nothing underneath and you are going for results, results, results.
"Then you end up up and down and five years later, you are saying, 'We are still the same team, doing all right, but not great'."
