The Lord mayor is elected at Common Hall each year on Michaelmas, and takes office on the Friday before the second Saturday in November, at The Silent Ceremony.

The Lord Mayor's main role nowadays is to represent, support and promote the businesses and residents in the City of London.

As leader of the Corporation of the City of London, the Lord Mayor serves as the key spokesman for the local authority and also has important ceremonial and social responsibilities.

The Lord Mayor is non-affiliated politically, typically delivering many hundreds of speeches and addresses per year and attending many receptions and other events in London and beyond.

The Lord Mayor’s office is also served by Aide de Camp representing the Uniformed Youth Organisations and they will be pleased to assist in the arranging of new affiliations.

From 1964 onward, the regular creation of hereditary titles such as baronetcies was phased out, so subsequent lord mayors were offered knighthoods (and, until 1993, most often as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE)).

Since 1993, lord mayors have not automatically received any national honour upon appointment; instead, they have been made knights bachelor upon retirement, although Gordon Brown's Government broke with that tradition by making Ian Luder a CBE, after his term of office in 2009, and the following year Nick Anstee declined offers of an honour.

For example, in 2001, Sir David Howard was created a grand cordon (first class) of the Order of Independence of Jordan by King Abdullah II.

The lord mayor is elected at Common Hall, comprising liverymen belonging to all of the City's livery companies.

Common Hall is summoned by the sitting lord mayor; it meets at Guildhall on Michaelmas Day (29 September) or on the closest weekday.

As noted earlier, the main role of the lord mayor is to represent, support and promote all aspects of UK-financial service industries, including maritime.

[2] Banquets hosted by the Lord Mayor serve as opportunities for senior government figures to deliver major speeches.

At the Easter Banquet, also hosted each year at the Mansion House, the Foreign Secretary addresses an audience of international dignitaries.

The lord mayor sometimes takes part in major state occasions; for example, in 2013, the then-lord mayor, Sir Roger Gifford, carried the Mourning Sword at Margaret Thatcher's funeral, processing ahead of the Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, into St Paul's Cathedral.

In each of the eighteen courtrooms of the Old Bailey, the centre of the judges' bench is reserved for the lord mayor, in his capacity of chief justice of the City of London.

When the sovereign enters the City, a short ceremony usually takes place where the lord mayor presents a sword to the monarch, symbolically surrendering their authority.

If the sovereign is attending a service at St Paul's this ceremony would take place there rather than at the boundary of the City for matters of convenience.

On formal occasions the lord mayor wears traditional black velvet court dress (old style) consisting of a coat, waistcoat and knee breeches with steel cut buttons.

It was enlarged in 1567, and in its present shape has 28 Esses (the Lancastrian ‘S’), Tudor roses and the tasselled knots of the Garter (alternating) and also the Portcullis, from which hangs the Mayoral Jewel.

[10][11] The collar is worn over whatever the lord mayor may be wearing, secured onto their underdress or State Robes by means of black or white silk satin ribbons on the shoulders.

[11] On other ceremonial occasions is worn a black silk damask robe trimmed with gold lace of a design exactly the same as that of the Lord Chancellor, known as the Entertaining Gown.