Jacob was born in May 1969 and was brought up in Somerset at Ston Easton and Hinton Blewett. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for North East Somerset in 2010 and again in 2015 and 2017. He was re-elected in December 2019 with 50.4% of the vote and a majority of 14,729. Being elected fulfilled his ambition to represent the Somerset parliamentary seat in which his family has lived for generations.

In October 2022, Jacob returned to the backbenches, after serving as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in Liz Truss’ Government. This followed eight months as Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, his first full Cabinet role; and two and a half years as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council. Jacob has previously been a Member of the Exiting the European Union Committee, the Treasury Select Committee, the Procedure Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee.
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Jacob was educated at Eton before reading History at Trinity College Oxford, he then moved into finance being based in Hong Kong and later moving back to London. He set up his own company in 2007 with a group of Partners; it is called Somerset Capital Management (SCM) and specialises in investment management in global emerging markets for institutional clients. Jacob stopped working for SCM when he was appointed to the role of Leader of the Commons in July 2019, as Cabinet Ministers are not permitted to have second jobs.