English dancer Francesca Hayward is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. She trained with Valerie LeServe in Sussex before joining The Royal Ballet School. She graduated into the Company during the 2010/11 Season, promoted to First Artist in 2013, Soloist in 2014, First Soloist in 2015 and Principal in 2016.

Hayward studied at The Royal Ballet School 2003–11 and while a student won the 2009 Lynn Seymour Award for Expressive Dance, the 2010 Young British Dancer of the Year and both silver medal and the Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Genée International Ballet Competition. After joining The Royal Ballet she represented the Company at the 2012 International Competition for the Erik Bruhn Prize and won Best Emerging Artist (2014) and Best Female Dancer (2016, 2019) at the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards.

Her repertory with the Company includes Cinderella, Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Marie (Different Drummer), Hamlet and Ophelia, Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Manon, Giselle, Princess Aurora (The Sleeping Beauty), Alice (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Swanilda (Coppélia), Tatiana (Onegin), Titania (The Dream), Perdita (The Winter’s Tale), Mary Vetsera and Princess Stephanie (Mayerling), Girl (The Invitation), Vera (A Month in the Country), Dorabella (Enigma Variations), Letty Mason (The Wind) and has also danced principal roles in Shoot the Moon, An American in Paris, The Limit, Woolf Works, Rhapsody, Within the Golden Hour, Infra, Jewels, The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Symphony in C, Dances at a Gathering and Solo Echo. She also created Tita (Like Water for Chocolate), and roles in Salle de danse, Prima, The Dante Project, Woolf Works, Morgen and Untouchable, among others.