Bev Craig, born Beverley Anne Craig, is a British Labour Party politician from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She currently serves as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, having previously spent five years as Leader of Manchester City Council. Her rise from a council estate on the outskirts of Belfast to one of the most prominent regional leadership positions in England has made her one of the most talked about figures in British local government.
Craig is widely recognised as a trailblazer. She became the first woman and the first openly gay person to lead Manchester City Council, and in 2026 she was elected as the first female Mayor of Greater Manchester. Her career reflects a steady, decade long climb through local government, built on public service, housing policy, social care and economic development. This biography looks at her early life, education, career, achievements, awards and personal life in detail.
Bev Craig Early Life
Bev Craig was born in 1985 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She grew up on a working class council estate just outside the city, in a community she has described as traditional, Protestant and loyalist. Her family lived in social housing, and she has often spoken about how that experience shaped her political outlook and her lifelong commitment to affordable housing and public services.
Craig began working from a young age. At just fourteen years old, she took her first job at a Chinese restaurant in Belfast. She later worked a Christmas job at Toys R Us and went on to work at TK Maxx in Belfast city centre. She also spent time working in a call centre before leaving Northern Ireland for university. Craig has said that dealing with members of the public in retail and call centre jobs helped prepare her for a career in politics, since handling difficult customers and frustrated callers built the resilience she would later need while campaigning and knocking on doors.
Craig also came out as gay at the age of fourteen, a decision she has said was met with scepticism from people around her who doubted her future. She has spoken candidly about growing up in a community where her sexuality made her an outsider in some respects, yet she has credited that early experience with shaping her determination and sense of purpose.
Bev Craig State of Origin
Bev Craig is originally from Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a constituent part of the United Kingdom, sharing the island of Ireland with the Republic of Ireland to the south. Belfast itself has a long and complex political history, shaped by decades of division between unionist and nationalist communities, a period widely known as the Troubles, followed by a fragile but lasting peace since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
Craig grew up on the outskirts of north Belfast, in a housing estate she has described as very traditional and working class. Her background in Northern Ireland, and specifically in a community shaped by loyalist and Protestant traditions, has often been highlighted in profiles of her career, since it stands in contrast with the diverse, multicultural city she now leads in England. She has reflected that, within her own community, being gay sometimes meant she found more understanding from people across the political and religious divide than from those closest to her. Despite leaving Northern Ireland as a young adult, Craig has continued to speak about her Belfast roots as central to her identity and her political values, particularly her focus on housing, equality and opportunity for working class communities.
Bev Craig Education
Craig was the first person in her family to attend university. In 2003, at the age of eighteen, she left Belfast and moved to Manchester, England, to study at the University of Manchester. She graduated with a degree in Politics and Modern History, a course of study that laid the groundwork for her later career in public administration and elected office.
After beginning her professional life, Craig continued her education alongside her work. She went on to complete postgraduate studies, earning degrees from both the University of Manchester and Warwick Business School. Some profiles describe this postgraduate work as a master’s degree in public policy and governance, reflecting her growing specialism in local government administration and leadership. Her continued education alongside a demanding career in public service has often been cited as evidence of her disciplined and driven approach to her work.
Bev Craig Career
Craig’s career has been built almost entirely within local government and public service in Greater Manchester, spanning more than two decades from her early administrative roles to her current position as a regional mayor.
Early Career in Local Government
After graduating from the University of Manchester, Craig began her professional career in local government. She then moved into higher education administration before taking a role with a national trade union, where she focused on social care policy. This period gave her a grounding in the practical realities of public services, particularly in areas such as adult social care, which would later become central to her work as a councillor.
Manchester City Councillor for Burnage
Craig was first elected to Manchester City Council in May 2011, representing the Burnage ward. She has held that seat continuously since then, being re-elected by local residents at every subsequent election. Her long tenure representing Burnage gave her deep roots within the council and a strong understanding of local issues facing Mancunian communities.
Executive Member for Adult Social Care and Health
During her time as a councillor, Craig took on the role of Executive Member for Adult Social Care and Health, later expanded to cover health and wellbeing. She held this brief for around four years. In this capacity, she played a leading role in Manchester’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, overseeing the city’s health and community response during a period of enormous strain on public services. Her focus during this time was on managing the immediate crisis while also working towards a more equal recovery for residents, and she championed Manchester’s push to become a Living Wage City, encouraging employers across the region to pay staff a wage that reflects the real cost of living.
Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council
In May 2021, Craig was appointed Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council, serving alongside Councillor Luthfur Rahman. In this role she took on responsibility for resources, capital programmes, social value and digital transformation within the council, broadening her experience beyond social care into the financial and operational management of a major city authority.
Leader of Manchester City Council
Craig was elected Leader of Manchester City Council by the ruling Labour group in October 2021 and formally took up the position on 1 December 2021, succeeding Sir Richard Leese, who had led the council for twenty five years. Her appointment made history, as she became both the first woman and the first openly gay leader in the council’s history.
As Leader, Craig focused on building what she described as a more inclusive and sustainable economy for Manchester. Her priorities included increasing investment in neighbourhoods across the city, improving outcomes for children and young people, tackling inequality, expanding housing supply and working towards the city’s net zero climate ambitions. Under her leadership, Manchester saw its first new social housing built in roughly forty years, a milestone often highlighted as one of her signature achievements in tackling the city’s housing crisis. She also oversaw continued economic growth and supported a number of regeneration projects across Manchester during a period that followed the disruption of the COVID nineteen pandemic.
Beyond her role in Manchester itself, Craig took on wider responsibilities across the region. As Leader of the council, she automatically became a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, where she served as Vice Chair with responsibility for the Economy, Business and Inclusive Growth portfolio. This position effectively made her a deputy to the then Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and gave her a leading role in attracting international investment and business to the wider city region.
Craig also built a national profile in local government circles. She served as Chair of Core Cities UK, the network representing the largest cities in the United Kingdom outside London, giving her a platform to advocate for greater devolution of powers from central government to city regions. She also became Vice Chair of the Local Government Association and Leader of its Labour Group, a position that involves supporting and representing Labour controlled councils and Labour councillors across England and Wales.
Mayor of Greater Manchester
In June 2026, Craig was selected as the Labour Party’s candidate to replace Andy Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester, following Burnham’s departure from the role to take up the position of Prime Minister. She went on to win the subsequent mayoral election, defeating candidates from Reform UK and the Green Party, and was declared the new Mayor of Greater Manchester in July 2026.
Her election made her the first woman ever to hold the office of Mayor of Greater Manchester, adding to her earlier distinction as the council’s first female and first openly gay leader. As Mayor, Craig has said she intends to apply a simple test to her decisions, asking whether they will make life better for residents. Her stated priorities in the role include addressing the cost of living, reviving struggling town centres, building more affordable homes and reducing the cost of bus travel across the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester. Her background as deputy mayor for the economy, along with her record on housing as council leader, was central to Labour’s case for selecting her as its candidate.
Bev Craig Achievements
Across her career, Craig has built a reputation as a steady and capable administrator who rose through the ranks of local government over more than a decade rather than arriving in frontline politics from another field. Among her notable achievements are her leadership of Manchester’s response to the COVID nineteen pandemic as the councillor responsible for adult social care and health, a period that placed enormous demands on local services and required close coordination between the council, the NHS and community organisations.
As Leader of Manchester City Council, she is credited with overseeing the construction of the city’s first new social housing in around four decades, a significant achievement given the scale of the housing pressures facing Manchester and many other British cities. She also led the council’s efforts to expand the Living Wage City initiative, encouraging local employers to raise pay standards for their workforce.
Her leadership roles at a national level, including chairing Core Cities UK and serving as Vice Chair of the Local Government Association’s Labour Group, reflect the respect she earned among fellow council leaders across the country. Finally, her election as Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2026 stands as the most significant achievement of her career so far, placing her in charge of a combined authority covering ten metropolitan boroughs and several million residents.
Awards
Craig was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, commonly known as an OBE, in recognition of her services to local government. The honour was announced as part of the New Year Honours list, and she was formally invested with the award by King Charles III in a ceremony held on 24 March 2026. The OBE remains the most significant formal honour of her career to date and reflects the standing she built during her years leading Manchester City Council.
Bev Craig Personal Life
Craig has spoken openly throughout her career about her identity as a gay woman and about the impact of her working class upbringing in social housing on her political values. She has said that she wants to reach a point where being a woman and being gay in a leadership role is treated as entirely unremarkable, rather than something that attracts particular attention or comment.
She has described her family’s continued reliance on social housing as a lasting influence on her, explaining that she understands firsthand the security that a stable, good quality home can provide during difficult times. This experience is often cited as the foundation of her focus on affordable housing throughout her time as a councillor, council leader and now as mayor.
Details about Craig’s immediate family and close relationships have not been widely publicised, as she has generally kept the focus of public discussion on her professional record rather than her private life. What is well documented is her strong connection to Manchester, the city she moved to in 2003 and has called home ever since, describing it on professional platforms as, in her words, the best city in the world.
Conclusion
Bev Craig’s story is one of steady progression through local government, built on public service roles in social care, deputy leadership and ultimately the top job at Manchester City Council before her election as Mayor of Greater Manchester. Raised on a council estate in Belfast, she became the first in her family to attend university, and went on to become the first woman and first openly gay leader of one of England’s most significant cities. Her achievements in housing, social care and regional economic development, together with the OBE she received for her service, mark her as one of the most notable figures to emerge from British local government in recent years. As Mayor of Greater Manchester, she now carries that record of steady, practical leadership into one of the most prominent regional roles in the country.
FAQs
Who is Bev Craig?
Bev Craig is a British Labour Party politician from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who currently serves as Mayor of Greater Manchester. She previously spent five years as Leader of Manchester City Council.
Where was Bev Craig born?
Bev Craig was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up on a working class council estate on the outskirts of the city.
What did Bev Craig study at university?
Craig studied Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester. She later completed postgraduate studies at the University of Manchester and Warwick Business School.
When did Bev Craig become Leader of Manchester City Council?
Craig became Leader of Manchester City Council on 1 December 2021, succeeding Sir Richard Leese, who had held the position for twenty five years.
When did Bev Craig become Mayor of Greater Manchester?
Craig was elected Mayor of Greater Manchester in July 2026, after Andy Burnham left the role to become Prime Minister.
Is Bev Craig the first woman to lead Manchester City Council?
Yes, Craig was the first woman ever elected to lead Manchester City Council, and she was also the council’s first openly gay leader.
Did Bev Craig receive any honours or awards?
Yes, Craig was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to local government, formally receiving the honour from King Charles III in March 2026.
What are Bev Craig’s main policy priorities as Mayor?
As Mayor of Greater Manchester, Craig has focused on the cost of living, affordable housing, reviving town centres and reducing the cost of public transport, including bus fares, across the region.