Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon was born in Ayrshire Central Hospital in Irvine on 19 July 1970. She is the eldest of two daughters born to Joan Kerr Sturgeon, a dental nurse, and Robin Sturgeon (born 28 September 1948), an electrician. Her younger sister, Gillian Sturgeon, is an NHS worker. Her family has some roots in North East England; her paternal grandmother, Margaret Sturgeon (née Mill), was from Ryhope in what is now the City of Sunderland. Sturgeon grew up in Prestwick and in the village of Dreghorn, in a terraced council house, which her parents bought through the right-to-buy scheme.

Sturgeon was a quiet child and has been described by her younger sister as "the sensible one" of the two. Sturgeon was shy and has said that she "much preferred to sit with my head in a book than talking to people". She developed a passion for books and reading which continued into adult life. She has described herself as being an "austere" teen whose style tended towards goth, adding that "if you see pictures of me back then, you would struggle to know whether I was a boy or a girl". Sturgeon was a fan of Wham! and Duran Duran, and enjoyed spending Saturday nights at Frosty's Ice Disco in Irvine.

Sturgeon attended Dreghorn Primary School from 1975 to 1982 and Greenwood Academy from 1982 to 1988. She later studied law at the University of Glasgow School of Law, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) in 1992 and a Diploma in Legal Practice the following year. During her time at the University of Glasgow she was active as a member of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association and the Glasgow University Students' Representative Council.

Following her graduation, Sturgeon completed her legal traineeship at McClure Naismith, a Glasgow firm of solicitors, in 1995. After qualifying as a solicitor, she worked for Bell & Craig, a firm of solicitors in Stirling, and later at the Drumchapel Law Centre and a Money Advice Centre in Glasgow from 1997 until her election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

In her early teens, Sturgeon joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and in 1986, at the age of 16, she became a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), quickly becoming the party's Youth Affairs Vice Convener and Publicity Vice Convener. She joined the SNP following an assumption by her English teacher, who was a Labour councillor, she would be a Labour supporter. In the 1987 UK General election, Sturgeon got her first taste of campaigning, going door-to-door to get her local SNP candidate, Kay Ullrich, elected to Westminster. Despite Ullrich failing to win the seat, Sturgeon ploughed her political energy into the Young Scottish Nationalists (now Young Scots for Independence), joining its national executive when she was 17.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Sturgeon revealed that it was Margaret Thatcher who inspired her to enter politics, because, due to rising unemployment in Scotland at the time, she developed "a strong feeling that it was wrong for Scotland to be governed by a Tory government that we hadn't elected".

Thatcher was the motivation for my entire political career. I hated everything she stood for.

— Nicola Sturgeon, Sturgeon's views on Margaret Thatcher

Sturgeon became the youngest ever parliamentary candidate in Scotland in the 1992 general election. Aged 21, Sturgeon was selected as the SNP candidate in the Glasgow Shettleston constituency. She was unsuccessful, having been beaten by almost 15,000 votes by Labour. Sturgeon also stood unsuccessfully as the SNP candidate for the Irvine North ward on Cunninghame District Council in May 1992, for the Baillieston/Mount Vernon ward on Strathclyde Regional Council in 1994, and for the Bridgeton ward on Glasgow City Council in 1995.

In the mid-1990s Sturgeon and Charles Kennedy went together on a political study visit to Australia.

The 1997 general election saw Sturgeon selected to fight the Glasgow Govan seat for the SNP. Boundary changes meant that the notional Labour majority in the seat had increased substantially. However, infighting between the two rival candidates for the Labour nomination, Mohammed Sarwar and Mike Watson, along with an energetic local campaign, resulted in Glasgow Govan being the only Scottish seat to see a swing away from Labour in the midst of a Labour landslide nationwide. …

In the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, Sturgeon defeated Gordon Jackson QC with a 4.7% swing to the SNP in the Glasgow Govan constituency. This was one of many swings to the SNP, as the party emerged as the largest party, winning one seat more than the governing Scottish Labour Party. Although the SNP was recognised as the winners of the election, it failed to obtain a majority and Labour was not willing to allow the SNP to enter government. Sturgeon led coalition negotiation talks between the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Greens, but these talks failed to reach an agreement, with the Lib Dems backing out and the Greens instead supporting a 'confidence and supply' agreement. Ultimately, Salmond formed a minority government and he was appointed First Minister of Scotland. He appointed Sturgeon as Deputy First Minister and tasked her with the Cabinet position of Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing.

Sturgeon served as Health Secretary in Salmond's first, and for a year, in his second cabinet. She was supported in her role as Health Secretary by Shona Robison, the Minister for Public Health and Sport, and by Alex Neil, the Minister for Housing and Communities. She launched her programme for government, the Better Health, Better Care: Action Plan, which settled a new vision for NHS Scotland. She reversed the decision to close casualty units at University Hospital Ayr and University Hospital Monklands. Sturgeon oversaw the scrapping of prescription charges In Scotland, an election pledge by the SNP originally for the chronically ill and those with cancer.

Sturgeon also outlined a guaranteed maximum 18-week wait for patients after they had seen their GP and vowed to do away with deferred or "hidden" waiting lists. She ordered a review of the issue of hospital car parking charges – as high as £7 in some areas – and launched an inquiry into the infection of NHS patients with Hepatitis C and HIV from tainted blood products.

As Health Secretary, Sturgeon became more widely known internationally for her handling of the 2009 flu pandemic.

On 26 April 2009, the Scottish Government confirmed that two people who had returned from Mexico had been admitted to Monklands Hospital in Airdrie after experiencing "mild flu-like symptoms". …

Sturgeon lived in Broomhouse, Glasgow, with her husband, Peter Murrell, who is a former chief executive officer of the SNP. On 13 January 2025, Sturgeon announced in a post on Instagram that she and Murrell had separated and are to divorce. The couple were in a relationship from 2003, having met in 1988 at a SNP youth event, he proposed to her on Hogmanay in 2009, and they were married on 16 July 2010 at Òran Mór in Glasgow.

Sturgeon is known for her love of fiction and says reading "gives me a lot of joy and helps with the stresses and strains of work". Her mother Joan was the SNP Provost of North Ayrshire council, where she was councillor for the Irvine East ward from 2007 until 2016.

In 2016, Sturgeon disclosed that she had miscarried five years previously. In May 2022, Sturgeon tested positive for COVID-19. In line with Government guidance, she completed a self-isolation period. In her 2025 memoir Frankly, Sturgeon wrote: "I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary."