The 2018 North East Lincolnshire Council election took place on 3 May 2018 to elect members of North East Lincolnshire Council in England.^[1] This was on the same day as other local elections.

After the 2018 local election, the political make up of the council was as follows:^[2]

Labour remained in minority control of the authority, with the support of Liberal Democrats. The authority was a target area for the Labour Party, hoping to regain seats that they had lost to UKIP in 2014. However, the Conservatives pulled off some unexpected victories in several wards on the authority, including wins in Freshney and Immingham for the first time since the late 2000s, and in Yarborough, Park and Croft Baker, where they hadn't won seats for over 25 years, long before NELC's creation.

Since the 2016 elections, former UKIP councillors Stephen Harness^[3] and Matthew Stinson who were sat as Independents at the time, joined the Conservative Party, while two further UKIP councillors, Nick Pettigrew^{[4][self-published source?]} and James Cairns,^[5] joined the Conservatives in 2017. Labour councillor Hazel Chase resigned her party and sat as an Independent, and would continue to do so after these elections, when she became the mayor for the 2018/19 municipal year. Liberal Democrat councillor Christina McGilligan-Fell quit her party in 2017 in protest at not being chosen as a parliamentary candidate for either Great Grimsby or Cleethorpes in the 2017 general election, and ran as an Independent in the former - losing her deposit. She rejoined the Liberal Democrats months after, in order to seek re-election under the party banner,^[6] but lost her seat nonetheless to the Conservatives. Less than a year after losing her seat, she was seen campaigning with the Conservatives for their candidate in her former ward in the 2019 local elections.^[7]

Two seats were fought in Immingham, due to the death of councillor Mike Burton in March 2018.^[8] Labour's Dave Bolton retained his seat on the authority by 3 votes after several recounts, but only for one year - the remaining term of office Burton had been elected for in 2015. The four-year seat was gained by Stewart Swinburn, a former Conservative councillor for the ward, who had lost his seat to Burton in 2011, and had failed to regain his seat in 2012, 2014 and 2016.

Shortly after these elections took place, a by-election was held to fill the vacancy in the Freshney ward in July 2018 due to the resignation of councillor Ray Sutton, following his decision to move out of the area. Labour's Sheldon Mill, who stood in Park in the elections in this set of elections, held the seat by a small margin of 42 votes over the Conservatives, but his win was short-lived and he lost the seat in the 2019 local elections to the Conservatives.

Vote share changes are compared with the 2016 elections, with the exceptions of Waltham, West Marsh and Wolds, which are compared with 2015.