“Someone once said to me that when you are disillusioned with politics, that’s when politics needs you.” For someone for whom politics seemed a world away when she was a teenager living in a homeless hostel, Sharon Thompson certainly has smashed through glass ceilings. She is currently deputy mayor at West Midlands Combined Authority, and deputy leader and cabinet member for economy and skills at Birmingham City Council. She is the councillor for North Edgbaston Ward and an independent adviser for the 2027 Invictus Games, has her own company and, until recently, was the vice-chair of the Association of Labour Councillors.
“I am dyslexic and I didn’t get much support at school so I left with only a handful of GCSEs. When I became a mum at 19, I was living in one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Birmingham,” she says.
She started volunteering in her local community, which led to a job running community centres for the local authority. However, in 2010, she decided to make a change.
“That new year, I made a commitment that I would change my life in a decade. At that point, I didn’t really know what I was going to do or how, but I knew I wanted a career, not just a job.”
“I became a magistrate. I was one of the youngest and I wasn’t a confident speaker, but I decided to go for it; it was almost more about self-leadership at that point”
One of Birmingham’s councillors Ian Ward – who later became leader of Birmingham City Council – told her he thought she would make a good councillor. “I replied that I didn’t understand what he did, so he invited me to shadow him, which I did for about six months,” Thompson says.
“I also started applying for things that were out of my comfort zone. A number of organisations asked me to speak about my experiences of being homeless. I found myself in places such as the Home Office, representing people like me from marginalised communities and deprived neighbourhoods. I put together a national toolkit on single working parents for policymakers, and I became a magistrate. I was one of the youngest and I wasn’t a confident speaker, but I decided to go for it; it was almost more about self-leadership at that point.”
Moving on
Following a council restructure in 2013, Thompson took voluntary redundancy, put herself through the Open University and moved into the charity sector. She loved it – but the politics bug had bitten and she decided to stand for election.
In May 2014, she was elected councillor for Birmingham’s highly diverse Soho Ward, achieving an impressive 81% majority. She was re-elected in 2018 and 2022 for North Edgbaston Ward. During that time, she has held cabinet member positions for homes and neighbourhoods, vulnerable children and families, and housing and homelessness.
“I have had imposter syndrome – I am not a polished politician; am I really supposed to be in this room?”
“When I first stood for council, I promised a group of rough sleepers that if I got elected, I would get their voices heard,” she says. “With Ian’s [Ward] support, I pushed for a scrutiny review into homelessness, ensuring members of the review met rough sleepers to hear from them. I became the city’s first homelessness champion. I wrote a manifesto on homelessness, which was endorsed by John Healey MP and adopted by Birmingham City Council, and I was invited to sit on The Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, which was when I found a loophole in legislation around supported housing,” she says.
“I literally made pincer movements around the country, meeting third sector leaders, housing associations, the Local Government Association, to get everyone on board with my position and why change was needed. I was invited to give evidence to the parliamentary select committee, and I invited them to come to Birmingham to see the problem for themselves – which they did!”
All this work led to the Supported Housing Act 2023, where there is now a commitment from the government to hold a consultation and change some of the legislation in line with the agenda Thompson and The Kerslake Commission were pushing for originally.
Crisis management
Although all this sounds positive, Thompson has worked for the council during some really challenging times, including dealing with the ongoing bin strikes and huge pay inequalities in the local authority.
In 2023, the council declared itself bankrupt. An internal report criticised the dysfunctional climate, and the Labour Party decided to replace Ward with John Cotton as leader. Thompson was chosen as deputy leader.
“Those have been real crisis management challenges. It’s been incredibly challenging and I have learned a lot – both about how to deal with those things, but also about myself,” Thompson says.
“I’m the first female and first ethnic minority to hold the deputy mayor post, and the first ethnic minority deputy leader, so sometimes being taken seriously has been difficult”
“I have always been a resilient person, but there have been times when I have had to dig deep. Sometimes I have had imposter syndrome – I am not a polished politician; am I really supposed to be in this room? That is the internal battle.
“The external battle is that I have always held what are traditionally very male-dominated portfolios – housing and economy. I’m also the first ethnic minority to hold the post of deputy leader in Birmingham, and I’m the first female and first ethnic minority to hold the position of deputy mayor for the West Midlands, so sometimes being taken seriously, and being able to command the room, have been difficult.
“I have tried to build strategies of how you deal with it. These include making sure I have good allies on side – and also that I am a good ally to others.”
Thompson supports others through her work with the Women’s Labour Network and as a peer mentor through the Local Government Association. She also draws on mentors herself, including Jean Templeton, who chairs the regional homelessness task force. “She’s been an incredible mentor to me,” Thompson says.
Collaboration is key
Thompson’s leadership premise is to include people who have lived experience of an issue. “I have always tried for collaborative, inclusive leadership,” she says. “If you’ve not lived through that situation, there are things you won’t know about it. When I had the housing portfolio, we absolutely got people that had a homelessness background to challenge and push the policy.”
Thompson’s leadership was recognised when she received runner up for the IoL Individual Excellence Award in 2025, and she recently celebrated becoming an IoL Fellow.
“It’s been incredibly challenging and I have learned a lot – both about how to deal with those things but also about myself”
Thompson has also started to think about her future career, and has decided not to stand for re-election in May 2026. “It’s not very often you get to influence legislation and I’ve managed to do it from a council seat, which is great. So I will miss aspects of it, but I think that there’s a new world out there for me where I can still use my skills, but in a different arena.”
This includes developing her own company, TILT 360, which offers a product to help organisations apply for local government grants and funding, and also moving into the regeneration and social mobility space.
“I’ve been through a lot, both professionally and on a personal level, so I’ve spent time understanding who I am and how I operate,” she says. “I set goals for each quarter, because I believe that in your to-do list you should have something your future self would thank you for. But also, when I return to work in January, the first thing I do is book my annual leave for the year. When we are in these leadership spaces, if we don’t have something to look forward to or to give us some respite, we’re in danger of ending up in a burnout situation.”
She pauses. “One of the mantras that I live by is that self-care is the greatest form of self-discipline. Another is: I am not going to be a victim of life, I am going to be victorious through it.”
