New unitary authorities to replace the county and district councils in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire held their inaugural elections this year.

Due to the cancellation of the 2020 local elections, these were the first local elections the three main parties contested under the leaderships of Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the Conservatives, Keir Starmer of Labour, and Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats.

Despite initial predictions that the party would perform better in the seats last contested in 2016, but worse in the ones contested in 2017 (when the party benefited from the then-exceptionally high approval ratings of Theresa May's government in the run-up to that year's general election), they in fact performed even better in both sets of seats.

Conversely, Labour's poor performance was generally ascribed to the party still being viewed by much of the working class as having been discredited by its prior opposition to Brexit, as well as Starmer's perceived opportunism in attacking Johnson over the Downing Street refurbishment controversy.

The Labour Party, despite making some gains, had a net loss of over eighty seats in areas that had traditionally voted for them, particularly to independent candidates.

Local elections also took place at the same time in Northern Ireland, which saw a rise in the Alliance Party's representation across the region.

Intentions to reorganise councils in Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset caused elections in those areas to be rescheduled for 2022.

[12] More combined authorities and significant reorganisations were planned, but in 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the government's devolution program for England.

On 1 March, Health Secretary Matt Hancock issued a warning that "all options" were being considered if the virus spread further, including delaying the local elections, for the first time since the 2001 elections which were delayed by a month due to the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

[15] On 12 March, the Association of Electoral Administrators asked the government to consider postponing the elections should the situation in the UK deteriorate.

[17] A day later, Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided to postpone the 2020 UK local elections until May 2021.

[19] The bill gave the government the power to postpone any elections, including by-elections, which would otherwise have been held between 16 March 2020 and 5 May 2021.

[21] On 4 November 2020, the Cabinet Office ruled out any further delays to local elections, after suggestions from some local authorities to defer the elections by a couple of weeks, in order to allow enough time to get the electoral roll in order without having to knock on doors during the second wave of the pandemic.

[22] After the country went into a third national lockdown in January 2021, the County Councils Network called on Johnson to declare "as soon as possible" whether the elections would go ahead as planned.

[25] It was confirmed in February by Chloe Smith and the Cabinet Office that the elections would in fact take place in line with the government's target to vaccinate all over 50s by the beginning of May.

[26] The Coronavirus Act 2020 also postponed by-elections to fill casual vacancies occurring because a sitting councillor resigned or died.

[30] In January 2021, government guidance on activity during the national lockdown was issued by the Minister of State for the Constitution and Devolution, Chloe Smith, stating that door-to-door campaigning or leafleting by individual political party activists was not possible under the restriction "You must not leave, or be outside of your home except where necessary".

[36][37] Following the death of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, political parties halted campaigning for local and devolved elections for a period of mourning of a few days.

This means voters vote once in a single member constituency and once for party representation in their electoral region.

[43] On 13 March 2020, the Government announced that the 2020 elections would be postponed until 2021 in response to growing concerns about the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council was due to hold an election for all councillors in May 2020, but this was postponed to 2021.

[49] Due to boundary changes, Salford City Council also elected all of its councillors in 2021, and subsequently returned to the thirds schedule.

Basingstoke and Deane, Cambridge, Chorley, Oxford and Pendle have all seats up for election due to ward boundary changes.

[54] Elections in Craven, Carlisle and South Lakeland have been postponed due to pending local government reorganisation.

The London Assembly consists of twenty-five elected members and acts as a scrutiny panel to the mayor.