2026 United Kingdom local elections

The 2026 United Kingdom local elections are scheduled to take place on Thursday 7 May 2026 for 5,036 council seats across 136 English local authorities^[3] (all 32 London borough councils, 32 metropolitan boroughs, 18 unitary authorities, six county councils, 50 district councils) and six directly elected mayors in England.

Most of these seats in England were last up for election in 2022. Some of these elections were postponed from 2025.^[4][5]

On the same day, there will also be elections to the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament.

The 2025 local elections were described as a sweeping victory for Reform UK. The party placed first, winning the most seats and took control of a number of local authorities.^[6] The governing Labour Party and opposition Conservative Party suffered historic losses. This was the first time that Labour finished fourth in a local election; they were the first elections under the premiership of Keir Starmer.^[7] There were major gains for the Liberal Democrats who won new councils.^[8]

In September 2025, following the Angela Rayner tax scandal that led to her resignation and a Labour Party deputy leadership election, the subsequent cabinet reshuffle, and the dismissal of Peter Mandelson as British ambassador to the United States over the latter's association with Jeffrey Epstein, criticisms of Starmer's leadership became more prominent within the Labour party. MPs reportedly viewed underperformance in the 2026 local elections and next Senedd election as a likely catalyst for a leadership challenge.^[9] On 13 September, The Guardian reported that plans to replace Starmer had begun among groups of MPs.

The English Devolution White Paper on 16 December 2024 set out the Labour government's plans for local government reorganisation, involving the remaining two-tier counties of England being abolished with elections to new unitary authorities. Some of the elections scheduled for May 2025 were delayed by a year in order to allow reorganisation to take place.^[4][10] At least 13 of the 21 county councils asked the government to delay their elections.^[11] 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.^[5]

By November 2025, it had been announced that Surrey County Council and the districts included in it would be replaced by new unitary authorities, but the government have said that other initially-scheduled 2025 elections will take place in the existing local government structure unless there is "strong justification otherwise", with the process of creating new unitary authorities delayed.^[12][13] Under the current statutory calendar as set out by The Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025, elections for the areas cancelled in 2025 will take place in 2026^[14] until a new statutory instrument is issued.

Four new combined authority mayoral elections — Greater Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton — were delayed to 2028, having been originally scheduled for 2026.^[15]

Elections for all councillors in all thirty-two London boroughs will be held in 2026 in line with their normal election schedule. The previous elections to London borough councils were held in 2022, which saw Labour win its second-best result in any London election and the Conservatives return their lowest-ever number of councillors in the capital.

There are thirty-six metropolitan boroughs, which are single-tier local authorities. Thirty-two of them have an election in 2026 (Doncaster, Liverpool, Wirral and Rotherham do not). Of these, Birmingham City Council and St Helens Council hold their elections on a four-year cycle from 2022, so are due to hold an election in 2026. In 2025 Barnsley Council held a public consultation regarding the permanent adoption of the whole council election cycle, which has since been confirmed.^[16] The council is going to hold their elections on a four-year cycle starting from 2026. The remaining twenty-nine councils generally elect a third of their councillors every year for three years with no election in each fourth year, on the same timetable which includes elections in 2026. Thirteen of these metropolitan borough councils have all of their councillors up for election in 2026 rather than the usual one-third, following ward boundary changes from their LGBCE electoral review. All thirteen will likely be reverting to thirds in 2027, 2028 and 2030.

By-elections or uncontested wards can cause the seats up for election to be above or below one third of the council.

Most of these unitary authorities elect councillors in thirds, with councillors elected in 2022 up for reelection in 2026.

Swindon and Milton Keynes elect councillors by thirds, but have all seats up in 2026 due to new ward boundaries. Thurrock and Isle of Wight both have all-up elections delayed from 2025. East Surrey and West Surrey are both newly-created councils with all councillors to be elected.

All of these elections were delayed from 2025.

• 2026 Senedd election
• 2026 Scottish Parliament election

• Local authority, combined authority, and county combined authority election cycles in England (gov.uk)