Local elections in the United Kingdom were held on 1 May 2025 for 1,641 English council seats in 24 local authorities. All seats on 14 county councils and eight unitary authorities in the United Kingdom were up for election. They were the first local elections to follow the 2024 general election. Most of these seats were last contested at the 2021 local elections. No local elections were held in the rest of the United Kingdom, with none held in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
There were also six mayoral elections, including the inaugural election for the mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, and the inaugural election for the mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire. The 2025 Runcorn and Helsby by-election was also held on 1 May. In addition, elections for the Council of the Isles of Scilly were held. The City of London Corporation held elections on 19 and 20 March.
The BBC described the elections as a "sweeping victory" for Reform UK: the party won 677 seats, increasing their total councillor number to 804. Reform thus held overall control in 10 local authorities. The governing Labour Party and opposition Conservative Party lost councillors ending with 6,177 and 4,403 councillors and overall control of 107 (-1) and 33 (-16) councils respectively. This was the first time that Labour finished fourth in a local election; it was the first set of elections under the premiership of Keir Starmer. There were gains for the Liberal Democrats who took overall control of three new councils (up to 37) and won more seats (370 new councillors to end with 3,197) than the Conservatives for the second local election in a row.
Some elections originally scheduled for 2025 have been delayed by up to a year while reorganisation takes place. The government announced that elections to nine councils would not take place in 2025 to allow restructuring, with elections to reformed or newly created replacement authorities taking place in 2026.
Background
Significance of these elections These elections were the first local elections to follow the general election held on 4 July 2024 which resulted in a landslide victory for the Labour Party. The combined vote share for Labour and the Conservatives reached a record low, with smaller parties doing well. Labour returned to being the largest party in Scotland and remained so in Wales. The election was noted as the most disproportionate in modern British history (i.e. Labour won 63% of seats with 34% of the vote), mainly as a result of the first-past-the-post voting system.
Keir Starmer won a landslide victory at the general election and became prime minister, but with the smallest share of the electoral vote of any majority government since record-keeping of the popular vote began in 1830. By the end of 2024, opinion polling for the Labour Party and Starmer's personal approval ratings had dropped significantly following several controversies including those regarding the abolition of Winter Fuel Payments and alleged trading of gifts for political influence, as well as a series of far-right anti-immigration riots fuelled by the perception that his government mishandled its response to the 2024 Southport stabbings, protests by farmers over a proposed new inheritance tax on their farms, and continued government support for Israel in the Gaza war. These controversies culminated in an online petition in November 2024 calling for an early general election reaching over 2 million signatures within 2 days.
On 2 November 2024, Kemi Badenoch won the 2024 Conservative leadership election to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader of the opposition. In a December 2024 interview, Badenoch said the public "kicked out" the Conservative Party because it was not trusted and did not deliver; she dismissed concerns that her approach of not having specific policy positions would leave a vacuum that could be filled by Reform UK; and she acknowledged the 2025 local elections would be difficult for her party. Nigel Farage's party Reform UK placed third in the share of the vote in the 2024 election and had MPs elected to the Commons for the first time. Farage and his party Reform UK did well in opinion polls at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives.
Following the publication of the English Devolution White Paper on 16 December 2024, which set out the Labour government's plans for local government reorganisation, some of the elections scheduled for May 2025 will be delayed by up to a year while reorganisation takes place. County councils and unitary authorities had until 10 January 2025 to request to join the Government's Devolution Priority Programme and ask the Government to cancel or postpone their regularly scheduled elections. At least 13 of the 21 county councils asked the government to delay their elections. On 5 February 2025, the government announced that elections to nine councils (seven county councils and two unitary authorities) would not take place in 2025 to allow restructuring to take place, with elections to reformed or newly created replacement authorities taking place in 2026.
These were the third set of local elections held under the Elections Act 2022, a controversial voter identification law that requires voters to show photo ID when attending a polling station. This act also meant that the elections for directly-elected mayors would use the first-past-the-post voting system rather than the previously used supplementary vote system.
Campaign
+ Aggregate seats contested by party Party Seats Reform UK Conservative Labour Liberal Democrats Green
Liberal Democrats Ed Davey launched the Liberal Democrats' campaign on 17 March in Great Missenden. On 20 March the party's spring conference began in Harrogate.
Davey said he wanted to replace the Conservatives as the "party of Middle England".
Conservative Kemi Badenoch launched the Conservative Party's campaign on 20 March at an event in Buckinghamshire. She warned activists of an "extremely difficult" challenge, and promised to bring "lower taxes and better services."
Badenoch suggested that Conservative Party councillors could form coalitions with Reform UK councillors, but Farage turned this suggestion down.
Reform UK Nigel Farage launched the Reform UK campaign at an event on 28 March at Arena Birmingham. Reform contested nearly all the council seats and the six mayoral elections.
Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer launched the Labour Party campaign on 3 April at an event in Derbyshire.
Green Carla Denyer launched the Green Party campaign on 8 April in Warwickshire.
Results
Overall
The table below shows the results of these elections, along with the overall number of councillors in Great Britain for each party following the elections.
Party Councillors Councils WonAfter+/−WonAfter+/− 677804 6771010 10 3703,197 163340 3 3194,403 674033 16 986,124 1870107 1 79895 4401 colspan=1 418 colspan=1 1 colspan=1 201 colspan=1 3 942,546 23011 colspan=3 10162 4 Total 1,635 18,596 — 23 368 —
County councils There are 21 county councils in England. All of them hold whole-council elections on a four-year cycle that includes 2025. However, 7 county councils (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex and Hampshire) had their elections postponed due to local government reorganisation. A total of 16 county councils applied for their elections to be postponed, though 9 (Derbyshire, Devon, Gloucestershire, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire) had this request rejected and their elections went ahead as planned, as these places were not part of the Devolution Priority Programme.
Council Seats Party control Details Previous ResultCambridgeshire 61 (Lib Dem–Lab–Ind coalition) DetailsDerbyshire 64 DetailsDevon 60 (Lib Dem–Green coalition)DetailsGloucestershire 55 (Lib Dem minority) DetailsHertfordshire 78 (Lib Dem minority) DetailsKent 81 DetailsLancashire 84 DetailsLeicestershire 55 (Reform UK minority) DetailsLincolnshire 70 DetailsNottinghamshire 66 DetailsOxfordshire 69 (Lib Dem–Lab–Grn coalition) DetailsStaffordshire 62 DetailsWarwickshire 57 (Reform UK minority) DetailsWorcestershire 57 (Reform UK minority) Details
Metropolitan boroughs Most metropolitan boroughs are elected by thirds across three years, with a fourth fallow year, which fell in 2025. However, City of Doncaster Council has been elected as a whole every four years from 2017, to coincide with the election of the Mayor of Doncaster. Council Seats Party control Details Previous ResultDoncaster 55 Details
Unitary authorities There are 62 unitary authorities, which are single-tier local authorities. Ten of them were due to hold whole-council elections on a four-year cycle that includes 2025. However, Isle of Wight and Thurrock had their elections cancelled due to local government reorganisation. Owing to boundary changes, several authorities saw a significant reduction in the number of councillors elected: Buckinghamshire reduced from 147 to 97, Durham went from 126 to 98 and West Northamptonshire elected 76 instead of 93.
Council Seats Party control Details Previous Result Buckinghamshire 97 (Con minority) DetailsCornwall 87 (Lib Dem–Ind coalition) DetailsCounty Durham 98 (Lib Dem–Con–Ind–North East Party coalition) DetailsNorth Northamptonshire 68 DetailsNorthumberland 69 (Con minority) DetailsShropshire 74 DetailsWest Northamptonshire 76 DetailsWiltshire 98 (Lib Dem–Ind coalition) Details
Combined authority mayors
Combined authority Mayor before Mayor after Details Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Nik Johnson (Labour) Paul Bristow (Conservative) gain Details West of England Dan Norris (Independent, elected as Labour) Helen Godwin (Labour) hold Details Greater Lincolnshire None, inaugural election Andrea Jenkyns (Reform UK) new Details Hull and East Yorkshire None, inaugural election Luke Campbell (Reform UK) new Details
Single-authority mayors Local Authority Previous Mayor Mayor-elect Details Doncaster Ros Jones (Labour) Ros Jones (Labour) hold Details North Tyneside Norma Redfearn (Labour) Karen Clark (Labour) hold Details
City of London Corporation
The City of London Corporation held its elections on 20 March.
Council Seats Party control Details Previous ResultCity of London 100 Details
Isles of Scilly
Fifteen of the sixteen seats on the Isles of Scilly were returned uncontested at the close of nominations, with only the island of St Martin's holding a poll on 1 May.
Council Seats Party control Details Previous ResultIsles of Scilly16Details
Elections delayed to 2026
These elections were originally scheduled to be held in 2025, but on 5 February 2025 it was announced that they would be delayed by a year to 2026 to allow for reorganisation of local government structure. The relevant legislation had to pass the House of Lords, where some peers tried to prevent this happening. A fatal motion, tabled by Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Pinnock, which would have prevented the postponement, was defeated by 63 votes to 163. Council Seats Party controlEast Sussex 50 Essex 78 Hampshire 78 Norfolk 84 Surrey 81 Suffolk 70 West Sussex 70 Isle of Wight 39 Thurrock 49
Maps
County councils
Unitary authorities
Metropolitan boroughs
Analysis