Electron spins hold great promise for quantum computation because of their long coherence times. Long-distance coherent coupling of spins is a crucial step towards quantum information processing with spin qubits. One approach to realizing interactions between distant spin qubits is to use photons as carriers of quantum information. Here we demonstrate strong coupling between single microwave photons in a niobium titanium nitride high-impedance resonator and a three-electron spin qubit (also known as a resonant exchange qubit) in a gallium arsenide device consisting of three quantum dots. We observe the vacuum Rabi mode splitting of the resonance of the resonator, which is a signature of strong coupling; specifically, we observe a coherent coupling strength of about 31 megahertz and a qubit decoherence rate of about 20 megahertz. We can tune the decoherence electrostatically to obtain a minimal decoherence rate of around 10 megahertz for a coupling strength of around 23 megahertz. We directly measure the dependence of the qubit–photon coupling strength on the tunable electric dipole moment of the qubit using the ‘AC Stark’ effect. Our demonstration of strong qubit–photon coupling for a three-electron spin qubit is an important step towards coherent long-distance coupling of spin qubits.