Steve Rotheram
Mayor of Liverpool City Region
Raised in Kirkby in a family of eight children, Steve left school at 16 to pursue a career as a bricklayer, starting out as an apprentice. In later years he went on to work for the Learning and Skills Council. Steve began his political career when he was elected as a Liverpool City Council councillor in 2002 and held the ceremonial title of Lord Mayor of Liverpool through the city’s European Capital of Culture year in 2008.
In 2010, Steve was elected as MP for the Liverpool Walton constituency and in 2017, Steve was elected as the first ever Liverpool City Region Mayor, representing 1.6m people across the boroughs of Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and the Wirral. He was subsequently re-elected in 2021 and 2024, the later with 68% of the vote, which was more than any other elected Mayor in the country. During his third term, Steve has pledged to return to council housebuilding at scale, to increase foreign direct investment (FDI) into the region, to build three new train stations and to launch a free pilot of artificial intelligence (AI) in local schools. He has also revised the region’s net zero target to 2035 – the most ambitious target for a city region in the country.