Suffolk superstar Ed Sheeran has been ranked as one of the most influential tweeters in the UK.

Ranked in sixth place behind all five members of One Direction, the former Thomas Mills High School pupil, who grew up in Framlingham, is more popular on social network site Twitter site than Prime Minster David Cameron.

The list, published by social analytics company PeerIndex, ranked the country’s top 140 users on how many UK-based tweeters were engaging with them.

They looked at more than 150 million tweeters and 10 billion tweets while compiling the list.

Liam Payne, of One Direction, was announced as the most influential tweeter in the UK. Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik completed the rest of the top five, while David Cameron finished seventh.

Journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan, author and journalist Caitlin Moran and comedian Ricky Gervais came eighth, ninth and tenth respectively.

Although the number of followers did not factor in the result, a retweet from more influential users improved overall ranking.

Azeem Azhar, founder of PeerIndex, said: “It’s not about what you do. It’s how others respond to you. A response from the Prime Minister is more important than one from me.

“As Twitter has become more mainstream, the top 140 starts to resemble the contours of popular culture and power.

“However, social media’s democrating effects still allow those with challenging, well defined or interesting views to build influence.”

Sheeran currently has 8.1million followers on Twitter.