Jonathan Reynolds: Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Secretary, Career and Biography

Jonathan Reynolds is one of the most experienced economic ministers in the current Labour government. Since 20 July 2026 he has served as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and President of the Board of Trade, a return to a department he previously led under a narrower name. His appointment came as part of Andy Burnham’s first government, after Burnham succeeded Keir Starmer as prime minister, and it merged the business department with the former Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Reynolds is also one of the few ministers in recent years to have moved from the Cabinet to the Chief Whip’s office and back again — a route that says a lot about how much his party’s leadership trusts his discipline and his grasp of detail.

Quick Bio

Early Life and Education

Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring, then in County Durham’s coalfield communities, and grew up in a working-class family. He studied Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester, a background that shaped his interest in both economic policy and the history of Britain’s industrial regions. Before entering Parliament he worked in politics and public affairs, and he was a local councillor, experience that gave him an early grounding in constituency work and in how national policy lands in towns whose economies depend on manufacturing and small firms.

Path to Parliament

Reynolds was elected MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in May 2010, a Greater Manchester seat covering Stalybridge, Hyde, Dukinfield and surrounding towns. He has held the seat at every general election since, building a reputation in Westminster as a diligent, policy-heavy frontbencher rather than a headline-seeking one. Colleagues from both sides have long described him as a minister who reads the detail, and that reputation followed him through opposition into government.

Shadow Frontbench Years

In opposition Reynolds held a series of senior shadow roles, most notably Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and then Shadow Business Secretary. In those roles he developed Labour’s positions on employment rights, industrial policy and the cost of doing business, and he became a familiar voice in debates about how Britain could raise productivity without leaving industrial communities behind. His shadow business brief in particular prepared him directly for the Cabinet job that followed the 2024 general election.

Business Secretary, First Time

After Labour’s landslide victory in July 2024, Keir Starmer appointed Reynolds Secretary of State for Business and Trade and President of the Board of Trade. In that first spell, which ran from 5 July 2024 to 5 September 2025, he promoted measures on employment rights, late payments to small suppliers, industrial energy costs and support for British exporters. He was sworn into the Privy Council in July 2024, gaining the style The Right Honourable. His time in the role ended in the September 2025 reshuffle, when he moved to a very different job.

The Chief Whip Interlude

From 5 September 2025 to 20 July 2026 Reynolds served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury — the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons. The whip’s office is one of the least visible and most demanding jobs in government: keeping a majority together, counting votes, managing backbench unhappiness and making sure legislation passes. That Reynolds was chosen for it, after running a major spending department, underlined how far his standing had risen inside the parliamentary party. It also gave him an unusually close view of what backbench MPs would and would not accept — knowledge that matters greatly in his current role.

Return to an Expanded Department

Following the 2026 Labour leadership crisis and Andy Burnham’s rise to prime minister, Reynolds returned as business secretary on 20 July 2026 — this time with science and innovation added to his brief after the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was folded into his department. The expanded Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade is meant to join up industrial strategy, research funding and trade policy in a single place. One of his first major outings was the Farnborough International Airshow in July 2026, where the government unveiled a £600 million package for the UK aerospace industry, including more than £500 million for cutting-edge aerospace research and technology and a new £100 million Aerospace Supply Chain Fund. The package was presented as an example of the new joined-up approach: science funding, industrial growth and export ambition in one announcement.

Trade and the India Deal

Reynolds also returned to office just as the India–UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement entered into force on 15 July 2026. Implementing that agreement — one of the most significant trade deals Britain has signed in recent years — is now a central part of his brief, and India’s commerce minister publicly congratulated him on his return to the role. For Reynolds, the deal connects directly to his long-standing argument that British manufacturing and services need open markets and stable trading rules to grow.

What Competitor Profiles Miss

Most short biographies of Reynolds treat his career as a simple climb from backbencher to Cabinet. They miss the unusual shape of it: a business secretary who became chief whip and then came back to business with a bigger department. That round trip matters, because it means the current business secretary has recent, first-hand experience of parliamentary management at a time when industrial strategy needs legislation, funding decisions and trade deals to survive Commons scrutiny. It also means he returns with a broader brief than before — science and innovation are no longer a separate department’s problem, but part of the same growth agenda.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is Jonathan Reynolds’ current job? He is Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and President of the Board of Trade, since 20 July 2026.
• Which constituency does he represent? Stalybridge and Hyde, which he has represented since May 2010.
• Was he chief whip? Yes — he was Government Chief Whip (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury) from September 2025 to July 2026.
• What department does he run now? The expanded Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, formed by merging the business department with the science and innovation department.
• Is he the same Jonathan Reynolds as the sports journalist? No — he is a Labour politician, not to be confused with other people of the same name.

More on Presslix

Read more: Nadia El-Nakla and explore more in the Biography category.

Sources

• GOV.UK — Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade minister page
• Wikipedia — Jonathan Reynolds
• Made in Britain — Who’s who in the new government, July 2026
• PES Media — UK government backs aerospace innovation, August 2026