The 2014 United Kingdom local elections were held on 22 May 2014. Usually these elections are held on the first Thursday in May but were postponed to coincide with the 2014 European Parliament Elections. Direct elections were held for all 32 London boroughs, all 36 metropolitan boroughs, 74 district/borough councils, 19 unitary authorities and various mayoral posts in England and elections to the new councils in Northern Ireland.

Quick Facts All 32 London boroughs, all 36 metropolitan boroughs,19 out of 55 unitary authorities, 74 out of 201 district councils, all 11 Northern Irish councils, and 5 directly elected mayors, First party ...

2014 United Kingdom local elections

← 2013 22 May 2014 2015 →
All 32 London boroughs, all 36 metropolitan boroughs, 19 out of 55 unitary authorities, 74 out of 201 district councils, all 11 Northern Irish councils, and 5 directly elected mayors
First party Second party Third party   Leader Ed Miliband David Cameron Nick Clegg Party Labour Conservative Liberal Democrats Leader since 25 September 2010 6 December 2005 18 December 2007 Popular vote 31%[lower-alpha 1] 29% 13% Swing 2%[lower-alpha 2] 4% 1% Councils 82 41 6 Councils +/– 6 11 2 Councillors 2,121 1,364 427 Councillors +/– 324 236 310   Fourth party   Leader Nigel Farage Party UKIP Leader since 5 November 2010 Popular vote 17% Swing 5% Councils 0 Councils +/– Councillors 166[lower-alpha 3] Councillors +/– 163[lower-alpha 3]
Map showing results of English and Northern Irish local elections, 2014. Council control in England and in Northern Ireland the largest parties are shown (where all councils had no overall control). Black represents No Overall Control, white represents areas that did not hold an election, blue represents the Conservative Party, red represents the Labour Party and gold represents the Liberal Democrats. Areas in light red represent the Democratic Unionist Party. Dark green represents Sinn Féin and light green represents the SDLP. Areas shown in grey are outside England and Northern Ireland

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All registered electors (British, Irish, Commonwealth and European Union citizens) who were aged 18 or over on the day of the election were entitled to vote in the local elections.

The BBC's projected national vote share (PNV) put Labour on 31%, the Conservatives on 29%, UKIP on 17%, and the Liberal Democrats on 13%.^[1] Rallings and Thrasher of Plymouth University's national equivalent vote share (NEV) estimated 31% for Labour, 30% for the Conservatives, 18% for UKIP, and 11% for the Liberal Democrats.^[2]

For the fourth year running, the Labour Party enjoyed the largest share of the vote in local elections, but its share of the vote was its smallest since 2010. UKIP, which topped the same day's European Parliament elections, finished third in vote share, claiming council seats from Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

All seats in the 32 London Borough Councils were up for election.

One third of the seats in all 36 Metropolitan Boroughs were up for election (showing those elected and each party's total in the new council).

Two unitary authorities had all of their seats up for election following boundary changes.

One third of the council seats were up for election in 17 unitary authorities (elected and totals shown).

There were five mayoral elections.

In Copeland, there was a referendum to establish a post of directly elected mayor, which passed.

These were the first elections to the 11 new 'super-councils' in Northern Ireland, following a reorganisation. These will operate in shadow form for one year, with the current 26 councils existing in parallel.^[12]

Sinn Féin (dark green) won more seats than any other party in (1) Belfast, (9) Mid-Ulster, (10) Derry & Strabane and (11) Fermanagh & Omagh. Sinn Féin and the SDLP elected more councillors (14 each) than did any other party in (5) Newry, Mourne & Down . The Democratic Unionist Party (dark orange) won more seats than any other party in each of the other six councils, and won as many as all the other parties combined in (4) Lisburn & Castlereagh.

Votes cast

These elections used the Single Transferable Vote method of proportional representation. Votes and percentages for each party reflect the first preference on each ballot.

More information Party, Councillors ...

Party		Councillors			% of councillors			First preference votes			% of FP votes
		2011 (notional)[13]	2014	+/-	2011 (notional)	2014	+/-	2011[6]	2014[7]	+/-	2011	2014	+/-
	DUP	145	130	15	31.4%	28.1%	3.3%	179,436	144,928		27.2%	23.1%	4.1%
	Sinn Féin	115	105	10	24.9%	22.7%	2.2%	163,712	151,137		24.8%	24.1%	0.7%
	Ulster Unionist	77	88	11	16.7%	19.0%	2.3%	100,643	101,385		15.2%	16.1%	0.9%
	SDLP	67	66	1	14.5%	14.2%	0.3%	99,325	85,237		15.0%	13.6%	1.4%
	Alliance	34	32	2	7.4%	6.9%	0.5%	48,859	41,769		7.4%	6.7%	0.7%
	TUV	3	13	10	0.6%	2.8%	2.2%	13,079	28,310		2.0%	4.5%	2.5%
	PUP	1	4	3	0.2%	0.8%	0.6%	3,858	12,753		0.6%	2.0%	1.4%
	Green (NI)	1	4	3	0.2%	0.8%	0.6%	6,317	5,515		1.0%	0.8%	0.2%
	UKIP	1	3	2	0.2%	0.6%	0.4%	2,550	9,311		0.4%	1.4%	1.0%
	NI21	0	1	1	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0	11,495		0.0%	1.8%	1.8%
	People Before Profit	0	1	1	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%	1,721	1,923		0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
	NI Conservatives	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		1,321	2,527		0.2%	0.4%	0.2%
	éirígí	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		2,062	1,756		0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
	Workers' Party	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		760	985		0.1	0.2%	0.1%
	Fermanagh Against Fracking	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		0	555		0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
	Republican Network for Unity	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		0	502		0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
	Community Partnership	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		800	388		0.1	0.1%	0.0%
	Socialist Party	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		682	272		0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
	BNP	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		491	174		0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
	Democracy First	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		0	173		0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
	Others	0	0		0.0%	0.0%		2,142	0		0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
	Independent	18	15	3	3.9%	3.2%	0.7%	32,151	26,682		4.9%	4.2%	0.7%
	Total	462	462		100%	100%		660,631	627,777		100%	100%

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These elections were held on 22 May 2014 as provided by 'The Local Elections (Ordinary Day of Elections in 2014) Order 2013' (S.I.Tooltip Statutory Instrument (UK) 2013/2277).^{[12][17][18][19]}

• Political make-up of local councils in the United Kingdom