Local elections in the United Kingdom were held on 7 May 2026 for 5,066 English councillors for 136 English local authorities (all 32 London borough councils, 32 metropolitan boroughs, 18 unitary authorities, 6 county councils, 48 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.
No local elections were held in the rest of the United Kingdom, other than two by-elections in Wales. The 2026 Scottish Parliament election and 2026 Senedd election were held the same day. The results were a success for both Reform UK and the Green Party (which had the largest increase in vote share), although Reform's vote share dropped since the previous election and the Greens underperformed opinion polls while Labour overperformed prior seat projections, and the vote projections showed a slight recovery for the Conservative Party. The Labour Party continued their collapse in vote share, with little change for the Liberal Democrats.The elections resulted in Reform UK gaining 1,453 councillors, while the Green Party won 587 seats, its highest number of councillors at the time.
Polling expert John Curtice noted that these results further confirmed the fragmentation of the United Kingdom's politics, as none of the political parties had the significant backing of the public; according to Sky News and the BBC, Reform UK won 26% to 27% of the vote, while most of the other major parties hovered around 20% to 16% of the vote. Reform UK did well in areas with high Brexit support. Labour lost 1,498 councillors and lost control of 38 councils, triggering an internal leadership crisis that culminated in Keir Starmer announcing his resignation as Prime Minister.
Background
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 to allow reorganisation to take place. 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.
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 said that other initially-scheduled 2025 elections would take place in the existing local government structure unless there was "strong justification otherwise", with the process of creating new unitary authorities delayed. 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.
In December 2025, the Labour government invited 63 councils to raise capacity concerns with ongoing local government reorganisation and request a postponement of their 2026 local elections, after also postponing 6 combined authority mayoral elections that were scheduled to occur on the same day. This move prompted criticism from the Electoral Commission, which questioned the credibility of the reasoning given and said that it caused "unprecedented" uncertainty. The Commission stated that "There is a clear conflict of interest in asking existing Councils to decide how long it will be before they are answerable to voters". Opposition parties also criticised the decision, accusing Labour of denying people the right to vote. By February 2026, the government confirmed that 30 of the 63 council elections had been postponed. However, following a legal challenge by Reform UK, which had made major gains in the previous local elections, the government withdrew on 16 February 2026 its plans to delay elections, after receiving legal advice that the delay could be unlawful; all scheduled elections for 2026, along with the delayed elections from 2025, were now to take place.
This is the second set of local elections during the premiership of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and it occurred during a time of Reform UK and the Greens rising sharply in opinion polls. It is the first set of local elections to take place after Zack Polanski became leader of the Green Party.
Campaigns + Aggregate seats contested by party Party Seats Labour Reform UK Conservative Green Liberal Democrats TUSC Workers SDP Your Party Advance UK Rejoin EU Restore Britain (Great Yarmouth First)
In England, Labour were defending more than 2,500 seats, the Conservatives over 1,300 and the Liberal Democrats just under 700.
Over 25,000 candidates were nominated to stand in the elections. Reform UK, Labour, the Conservatives and the Green party all stood candidates in over 95% of wards, while the Liberal Democrats had candidates in 86%. The only other party with candidates in more than 2% of wards was the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, with 9%.
Labour On 20 March 2026,Sharon Graham (the General Secretary of Unite) said in a speech to refuse workers at a protest near a waste depot in Tyseley, Birmingham that Labour would be "decimated" in the upcoming local elections and should "hang their heads in shame" over its handling of the Birmingham bin strike.
On 30 March 2026, Keir Starmer launched Labour's local election campaign at City of Wolverhampton College, West Midlands. According to ITV, Wolverhampton was at the time one of Labour's safest councils in the region and Keir Starmer denied Birmingham was a "lost cause". The BBC said Labour was going into the elections with consistently low poll ratings.
Conservatives On 19 March 2026, Kemi Badenoch launched the Conservative campaign for the local elections at an event at Sinfonia Smith Square in Westminster, London.
On 6 May 2026, Kemi Badenoch declined to rule out local pacts with Reform in an interview with Sky News, suggesting she would be "happy" to see Conservative and Reform councillors collaborating to deliver right wing policies at a local level. On 7 May 2026, she rowed back on this in an interview with the The Sun, saying "We're not doing deals with Reform. I don't want to see us helping Reform... they're not serious."
Liberal Democrats On 24 March 2026, Ed Davey launched the Liberal Democrat campaign for the local elections at an event in Lovelace Lodge, in East Horsley, Surrey.
Reform UK On 1 January 2026, Nigel Farage announced he wanted to go "double or quits" by planning to spend more than £5 million over the following four months in the run-up to the local elections, saying he wanted to spend "every single penny in the bank account" on a mass direct mail and social media campaign. He called the year's set of local elections the "single most important event" before the next general election. In August 2025, Reform UK received a £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne, a British–Thai billionaire businessman.
On 10 March 2026, Farage launched Reform's local election campaign at a live-streamed event with 1,500 supporters at GG's restaurant, in Newport, Isle of Wight. This was the first in a planned nationwide series of rallies.
Green Party Following the election of Zack Polanski as Green Party leader, the party rose sharply in popularity polls.
The Green Party launched its local elections campaign on 9 April 2026. The party stated its desire to build and maintain council housing and social homes, pointing to Green-led councils in Lewes and Mid Suffolk, which built hundreds of new council homes in previous years. It also vowed to put pressure on the Labour Party to introduce rent controls and abolish the leasehold system, "freeing five million people from the financial burden of service charges".
Restore Britain On 1 April 2026, Rupert Lowe announced Restore Britain would not stand candidates for the local elections except in the Great Yarmouth area of the 2026 Norfolk County Council election through Great Yarmouth First, its local affiliate party, stating the election would serve as a testing ground for future Restore Britain candidacies.
Independents Dissatisfied over the Labour government's position on the Gaza war, a large number of Muslim candidates stood as independents, campaigning exclusively on pro-Gaza sentiments. Many among them were endorsed by the Your Party and The Muslim Vote. In Birmingham, significant controversy erupted over the candidature of Shahid Butt, a British Pakistani who had been convicted in a plot of bombing the British consulate, an Anglican Church and a Swiss-owned hotel in Yemen in 1999, who campaigned on an explicitly new antisemitic platform.
Results
Overview With all 136 councils being declared, Reform UK took 1,453 councillor positions, an increase of 1,451 seats. Labour took 1,068 seats, a decrease of 1,496 seats. The Tories took 801 seats, a decrease of 563 seats. The Liberal Democrats took 844 seats, an increase of 155. The Green Party took 587 seats, an increase of 411. Independent-orientated candidates won 212 seats, up 34 seats. The Residents' Association won 36 seats, a decrease of 31.
Labour lost control of 38 councils, Reform UK gained 14 councils, Conservatives lost 6 councils, the Liberal Democrats gained 1 council, Green gained 5 councils, and 23 councils switched to being in a state of no overall control by a political party.
London boroughs
Elections for all councillors in all thirty-two London boroughs have been 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.