2022 City of Edinburgh Council election

2022 City of Edinburgh Council election

← 2017 5 May 2022 (2022-05-05) 2027 →

All 63 seats to City of Edinburgh Council
32 seats needed for a majority
Registered399,239
Turnout47.2%
  First party Second party Third party
 
SNP
Lab
LD
Leader Adam McVey Cammy Day Robert Aldridge
Party SNP Labour Liberal Democrats
Leader's seat Leith Forth Drum Brae/Gyle
Last election 19 seats, 27.1% 12 seats, 18.4% 6 seats, 13.6%
Seats before 15 11 6
Seats won 19 13 12
Seat change Steady Increase 1 Increase 6
Popular vote 48,199 35,608 38,263
Percentage 25.9% 19.1% 20.6%
Swing Decrease 1.1% Increase 0.8% Increase 6.9%

  Fourth party Fifth party
 
Grn
Con
Leader Steve Burgess / Claire Miller (co-conveners) Iain Whyte
Party Scottish Green Conservative
Leader's seat Southside/
Newington

(Burgess)
City Centre (Miller)
Craigentinny/
Duddingston
Last election 8 seats, 12.4% 18 seats, 27.7%
Seats before 7 17
Seats won 10 9
Seat change Increase 2 Decrease 9
Popular vote 26,411 32,612
Percentage 14.2% 17.5%
Swing Increase 1.8% Decrease 10.2%

Election result by council wards

Leader before election

Adam McVey
(SNP)
No overall control

Leader after election

Cammy Day
(Labour)
No overall control

Elections to the City of Edinburgh Council took place on 5 May 2022 on the same day as the 31 other Scottish local government elections. As with other Scottish council elections, it was held using single transferable vote (STV) – a form of proportional representation – in which multiple candidates are elected in each ward and voters rank candidates in order of preference.

For the second consecutive elections, the Scottish National Party (SNP) were returned as the largest party with 19 seats albeit with a slightly reduced vote share (down 1.1%). Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens all made gains at the expense of the Conservatives, who fell from the second-largest party to the smallest representative group on the council. Labour overtook the Conservatives into second place as they gained one seat to return 13 councillors. The Liberal Democrats doubled their number of councillors, as they were returned as the third-largest party with 12 seats, while the Greens gained two seats to hold 10. The number of Conservative councillors halved as they fell from 18 seats to nine.

Following the election, the ruling SNP-Labour coalition was replaced by a Labour minority administration supported by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.