[2][3] Mariana Vieira da Silva is the daughter of politician José António Vieira da Silva,[4] himself a government minister in the Socialist cabinets of José Sócrates and António Costa, and economist Margarida Guimarães.

[1] In her youth, between the ages of 9 and 19, Vieira da Silva was a competitive swimmer for Sporting CP, specialising in the demanding 200 metres butterfly stroke.

[1][5] Vieira da Silva earned a licentiate degree in Sociology from ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, in 2002,[1] and has not yet concluded her doctorate in Public Policy (she has finished the coursework but has not yet presented her dissertation on the subject of health and education policies in Portugal).

[1] From 2005 to 2009, she worked in an advisory capacity in the office of the Minister of Education Maria de Lurdes Rodrigues.

[2] In November 2015, Vieira da Silva became part of the XXI Constitutional Government as Secretary of State Adjunct to the Prime Minister, until February 2019, when she replaced Maria Manuel Leitão Marques (elected Member of the European Parliament) as Minister of the Presidency and of Administrative Modernisation.