Newly created combined authority mayors were directly elected in six areas of England: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City Region, Tees Valley, the West Midlands, and the West of England.

[6][7][8] The Conservatives won four out of six metro-mayoral areas,[9] including in the traditionally Labour-voting Tees Valley and West Midlands.

[18] According to a BBC News estimate, taking into account boundary changes, the major political parties were effectively defending the following notional results in council seats on election day: There were also 687 independent councillors and 4 Mebyon Kernow councillors.

[19] A by-election for the parliamentary constituency of Manchester Gorton (caused by the death of Sir Gerald Kaufman, the sitting MP) was due to be held on the same day as the local election, but the by-election was cancelled after the general election was called for the following month.

The BBC's preliminary Projected National Vote Share was 38% for the Conservatives, 27% for Labour, 18% for the Liberal Democrats and 5% for the UK Independence Party, with others on around 12%.

[21] This is the highest vote share for the Conservatives in local elections since 2008, when they faced Labour a decade into government and suffering from the financial crisis.

For comparative purposes, the table above shows changes since 2012 across 21 local authorities and the 2013 result from Anglesey Council.

[30][31] All 27 county councils for areas with a two-tier structure of local governance had all of their seats up for election.

The Council of the Isles of Scilly was created by the Local Government Act 1888, meaning they lie outside the classifications of authorities used in the rest of England.