Current political landscape

Labour’s Oliver Coppard was elected as Mayor of South Yorkshire (previously Sheffield City Region) in May 2022, winning 71.4% of the votes in the final round. Conservative Clive Watkinson came second with 28.6% in the final round.

The next South Yorkshire mayoral election is scheduled for 2026.

This page brings together the key facts and figures about the area’s economy and asks what local residents see as the top priorities for the metro mayor.

Economic outlook

South Yorkshire consists of the following local authorities: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield.

Understanding how the city-region performs on key areas such as productivity and employment will help the new metro mayor to assess what they should prioritise. The table below shows how South Yorkshire compares to the UK average.

What powers does the South Yorkshire metro mayor have?

Below is a summary of the powers the South Yorkshire metro mayor has.

The policy priorities for the South Yorkshire metro mayor

We outlined three priorities that the 2022 metro mayor of South Yorkshire (previously Sheffield City Region) should focus on.

Policy priority 1: Improve the educational attainment and ambition of young people across South Yorkshire

• Despite the office’s lack of direct powers in this domain, use the mayor’s profile to champion efforts that raise educational attainment and ambition in young people
• Promote initiatives such as the Children’s University and Sheffield Futures, and ensure that young people across all of South Yorkshire can access similar programmes

Policy priority 2: Franchise the bus system

• Conduct a data-led assessment of bus franchising, similar to Greater Manchester’s assessment, in order to convince stakeholders and counter potential opposition
• Initiate a review of how best to fund bus franchising

Policy priority 3: Ensure development in South Yorkshire supports growth in Sheffield’s city centre

• • Develop a strategy to level up the labour market of Sheffield’s city centre with other city centres’
  • Build new dense, high-quality housing around existing transport links so that residents can get to Sheffield’s city centre quickly