Reform UK › 2025
Reform UK in 2025
Polling day: 1 May 2025. 23 councils held elections.
Summary
- Contested in 23 of 23 councils; ran for 1,640 seats.
- Won 679 seats (41.4% of seats up) on 31.7% of the vote.
- Net change vs each council's last appearance in this dataset: +659 seats across 21 councils up, 0 councils down, 0 flat, 2 new to the window.
- Council-control change: 13 gained, 0 lost.
Same votes, different counting rule
Compare the seats Reform UK actually won under FPTP with a proportional re-count of the same council-level votes. Positive means seats unfairly awarded by FPTP; negative means seats the party was denied by FPTP.
Where Reform UK led, as of 2025
Councils where Reform UK was the largest single party in the most recent composition snapshot at or before 2025. Greens ring councils gained at this election; reds ring those lost. Click any hex to drill in.
As of 2025
13 councils led
+13 gained this cycle
Grey hexes are councils where another party led, or where we don't have a snapshot for that year.
Council-control changes
Councils where the largest party in the running composition changed at this election. How a flip is defined →
Gained (13)
- Staffordshire from Conservative Party
- Kent from Conservative Party
- Derbyshire from Conservative Party
- Lancashire from Conservative Party
- West Northamptonshire from Conservative Party
- Doncaster from Labour Party
- North Northamptonshire from Conservative Party
- Nottinghamshire from Conservative Party
- County Durham from Labour Party
- Lincolnshire from Conservative Party
- Worcestershire from Conservative Party
- Leicestershire from Conservative Party
- Cornwall from Conservative Party
Where the seats came from
Per-council net seat change vs each council's prior appearance in our dataset (typically that council's previous all-out election or its last by-thirds slice). "Debut" rows are councils whose first cycle in our window is 2025 — usually the result of a boundary reorganisation or being a county outside our 2021 LEH coverage.
Seats gained (21 councils)
| Council | Won | Last cycle | Net | Vote share | Seat share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Durham | 65 | 0 (2021) | +65 | 40.8% | 66.3% |
| Kent | 57 | 0 (2021) | +57 | 37.0% | 70.4% |
| Lancashire | 52 | 0 (2021) | +52 | 35.6% | 62.7% |
| Staffordshire | 49 | 0 (2021) | +49 | 41.3% | 79.0% |
| Lincolnshire | 44 | 0 (2021) | +44 | 39.4% | 62.9% |
| Nottinghamshire | 42 | 0 (2021) | +42 | 37.1% | 63.6% |
| Derbyshire | 42 | 0 (2021) | +42 | 36.8% | 65.6% |
| West Northamptonshire | 42 | 0 (2021) | +42 | 33.0% | 55.3% |
| North Northamptonshire | 40 | 0 (2021) | +40 | 35.0% | 58.8% |
| Doncaster | 37 | 0 (2021) | +37 | 40.6% | 67.3% |
| Cornwall | 28 | 0 (2021) | +28 | 29.1% | 32.2% |
| Worcestershire | 27 | 0 (2021) | +27 | 31.7% | 47.4% |
| Leicestershire | 25 | 0 (2021) | +25 | 32.4% | 45.5% |
| Warwickshire | 23 | 0 (2021) | +23 | 30.6% | 40.4% |
| Northumberland | 23 | 0 (2021) | +23 | 29.3% | 33.3% |
| Devon | 18 | 0 (2021) | +18 | 27.1% | 30.0% |
| Shropshire | 16 | 0 (2021) | +16 | 27.4% | 21.6% |
| Hertfordshire | 14 | 0 (2021) | +14 | 24.0% | 17.9% |
| Gloucestershire | 11 | 0 (2021) | +11 | 25.2% | 20.0% |
| Buckinghamshire | 3 | 0 (2021) | +3 | 19.7% | 3.1% |
| Oxfordshire | 1 | 0 (2021) | +1 | 17.8% | 1.4% |
Seats lost (0 councils)
No councils where seat count fell vs prior cycle.
Debut councils (2)
| Council | Won | Vote share | Seat share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cambridgeshire | 10 | 23.0% | 16.4% |
| Wiltshire | 10 | 22.2% | 10.2% |
Net-change comparisons are versus each council's most recent appearance in our dataset (2021–2026). For all-out councils that's the previous all-out cycle (typically four years prior); for by-thirds councils it's last year's slice. Cross-cycle ward boundary changes can produce small artefacts — see methodology.