NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is engaged to Clarke Gayford

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her longtime partner are engaged to be married.

Ardern, 38, and television show host Clarke Gayford, 42, became engaged over the Easter break, a spokesman for her office confirmed on Friday.

They declined to comment further.

The news comes almost a year after the couple welcomed their first child, Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford, in June 2018.

At the time, Ardern was the second world leader to give birth while in office.

Ardern and Gayford met in 2012 at an awards ceremony, which the future Prime Minister attended as the plus-one of New Zealand model and TV personality Colin Mathura-Jeffree.

According to Stuff, Gayford, who is the current presenter of TV fishing series Fish of the Day, later approached Ardern with a constituency issue.

The Prime Minister has previously denied rumours of engagement.

When her Facebook followers spotted a silver ring with a black stone on her ring finger last October, Ardern explained she had to rotate where she wore it on due to a skin condition.

When asked earlier this year whether she could consider proposing to Gayford, Ardern told the BBC she wanted to "put him through the pain and torture of having to agonise about that question himself".