Where are elections taking place in May and when will we find out the results?

Local elections are being held across the UK on 7 May, which will see millions of people vote for councillors, members of the devolved parliaments and local mayors.

The results of these elections could have a profound impact on all the main political parties, not just locally - but on a national scale too.

The votes are being watched closely by MPs, many of whom see the results as being a test of their party's leadership in Westminster.

Politics latest - follow live

So, where are elections taking place, why do they matter and crucially - when we will know the results?

Who is getting a vote this time around?

There are elections for 136 local councils in England, with 5,014 seats up for grabs.

This includes votes for every seat on all of London's 32 borough councils, as well as on more than a dozen borough councils, six unitary councils, six county councils, and three district councils.

There are also a further 73 councils where elections are being held for half or one-third of the seats available.

Read more:
What's at stake for Wales in May's elections?
Key challenges next Holyrood government will face

But it's not just local councils that people can vote for come 7 May.

Six areas in London are holding elections for directly elected local mayors. These are: Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Watford.

Votes will also be taking place outside of England for devolved administrations, both in Cardiff and in Edinburgh.

People will be able to vote for who they want to run the Senedd in Cardiff Bay and the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood.

When will we find out the results?

The polls will be open between 7am and 10pm on 7 May. After that, the counting begins.

But we will not have to wait long for the first results because, like a general election, a lot of the ballots will be totted up overnight.

In fact, Sky News analysis suggests the results of almost 50 local council elections should be in by the time most people wake up at 7am on Friday morning.

For those keen to stay up to watch the coverage, the first councils to declare are expected to do so at around 12.30am.

Results will then begin to come in more routinely from around 3am.

Those declaring overnight are expected to include Oxford - where both the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are chasing Labour's votes; Bexley - seen as Reform UK's best chance at gaining a London borough; and Hampshire - a Tory-run council expected to cede votes to the Lib Dems and Reform.

Between lunchtime on Friday and the end of the day, a further 82 councils are expected to declare their results.

But the final five are not expected to give a final verdict until Saturday afternoon. Those late finishes include Croydon and Tower Hamlets in London, as well as Hastings in Sussex.

Separately, the mayoral elections only begin counting on Friday, with Hackney and Newham expected to declare at 1pm that day, followed by Watford at 2pm, Lewisham at 3pm, Croydon at 4pm, and Tomer Hamlets last, at around 6pm.

Why do the local elections matter?

Local elections typically have a lower voter turnout than general elections - in 2024 for example, the turnout in England was 30%, compared to 60% at the general election held the same year.

But that does not mean they are unimportant.

Local councils still have a lot of influence over voters' lives, and arguably more on a day-to-day basis than the government in Westminster.

While Whitehall controls areas such as foreign policy and defence, councils control a range of local services, such as how frequently bins are collected, when potholes are repaired and which services should be prioritised for funding, be it parks, libraries or local facilities such as leisure centres.

The devolved parliaments, in Cardiff Bay and Holyrood, also have many powers, too.

Depending on the country, these have control over a range of measures, including rates of income tax, the NHS and social care, as well as education, among other topics.

You can read exactly which issues are controlled by each parliament in our in-depth explainer here.

But the local elections are considered to be important in Westminster too, where they are seen as a glimpse of how the public is feeling towards the government of the day - in this case, Labour - and the opposition parties.

Any sizeable swings in either direction could lead to the parties in parliament deciding to do some reorganisation of who is in charge, or of their direction as a whole.

(c) Sky News 2026: Where are elections taking place in May and when will we find out the results?