Sun editor Rebekah Wade to become chief executive

Wade, long rumoured as being groomed for a top job with Rupert Murdoch's News International, becomes its chief executive officer, with overall responsibility for The Sun and the other papers in the group, including The Times, Sunday Times and News of the World.

Speculation will now focus on her successor at The Sun at a time when the paper's support for either David Cameron or Gordon Brown at the next election will be crucial.

News International said she would take up her new role on 1 September and that a new editor would be named "in the summer".

There are no obvious candidates and former editors have often been drawn from within the ranks of Murdoch's other newspapers.

Possibilities include Dominic Mohan, the deputy editor of The Sun, and tabloid veteran Colin Myler, editor of the News of the World. An outsider is Richard Wallace, editor of the Daily Mirror.

Wade and the paper have been close to New Labour, but there have been signs that Mr Murdoch is moving towards Mr Cameron, although he is still said to be unconvinced.

Both party leaders and Mr Murdoch were at Wade's lavish wedding in Oxfordshire this month to racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks.

Wade was previously married to former EastEnders star-turned-documentary maker Ross Kemp. In 2005 she was arrested by police and spent a night in the cells after an altercation at their home; she was not charged. The couple later divorced.

Before joining The Sun, Ms Wade edited the News of the World. It was there she began the campaign for the public to be given the right to know if sex offenders lived nearby following the murder of schoolgirl Sarah Payne, the so-called Sarah's Law, which provoked accusations that it was creating vigilantism.

As editor of The Sun, she has maintained the low profile expected by Mr Murdoch of his editors, only surfacing to give evidence to a Parliamentary committee on media regulation — when she caused a storm by admitting that the paper sometimes paid police for stories.

In a statement, Mr Murdoch said Wade was "a great campaigning editor" and added that he was personally "thrilled" at her promotion.

Mr Murdoch's son James will become executive chairman of News International and chief executive of News Corporation for Europe and Asia.

Her stewardship will include deciding on the future of the loss-making thelondonpaper, the daily free newspaper. It lost £12.9 million in the year to last June and has an overdraft facility of more than £26 million, more than double the previous year.