Photo: Manchester City Council, OGL 3 via Wikimedia Commons

Editor's note (6 October 2026): This article has been corrected. An earlier version presented the Greater Manchester mayoral contest as still under way. Bev Craig won the by-election held on 30 July 2026, was declared the winner on 31 July and took office on 3 August 2026. The headline and text have been rewritten to reflect this.

Bev Craig is the Mayor of Greater Manchester. The Labour and Co-operative candidate won the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election held on Thursday 30 July 2026 and formally took office on 3 August 2026.

The by-election was triggered after Andy Burnham won the Makerfield parliamentary by-election on 18 June and had to step down as mayor on his way to becoming prime minister. With more than two million eligible voters, it was described as the biggest by-election in British political history.

The result was declared just after 11pm on Friday 31 July at Co-op Live. No candidate passed 50 per cent in the first round, where Craig took 47 per cent of first-preference votes, ahead of Reform UK on 21 per cent and the Greens on 12 per cent.

Once second preferences were counted, Craig beat Reform UK's Sian Astley by 309,525 votes to 157,178, or 66.3 per cent to 33.7 per cent. Turnout was 25.14 per cent, with 538,659 verified ballot papers.

In her victory speech, Craig urged people to "move away from divisive politics that try to pit neighbour against neighbour".

In an interview with the Guardian the weekend before polling day, Craig insisted the mayoralty was not a stepping stone to Westminster and committed to standing again for a full term in 2028. "This, for me, is the dream job," she said. "Anyone that doesn't believe that shouldn't be standing because it's disrespectful to the people of Greater Manchester."

Craig moved to Manchester from Northern Ireland in 2003, aged 18. She became a city councillor in 2011 and was leader of Manchester City Council from 2021 until she became mayor.

The role puts her in charge of the biggest mayoral authority outside London, with a £3bn budget and powers across housing, health, policing and transport.

On her first day in office, she announced that free bus travel on the Bee Network will be extended to 11 to 16-year-olds from January, a pledge from her campaign. "Families across Greater Manchester are struggling with the cost of living and I'm using my first day as mayor to do something practical to make life a bit easier," she said.

She also confirmed she would reappoint Kate Green and Paul Dennett as Deputy Mayors.

Craig will serve as mayor until the next scheduled Greater Manchester mayoral election in 2028.

Sources: The Guardian (interview, 26 July 2026), The Guardian (result, 31 July 2026), GM Elects, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the BBC. This article was produced with the help of AI tools and checked against the sources above.