The Department for Education has spent over £700,000 on influencers in the past two years – and nearly five times more in 2025-26 than the year before. Critics have called it wasteful. We’d call it proof that even the most cautious institutions in the country now see creators as essential to reaching people who matter. Here’s what the DfE’s spending really tells us about where this industry stands.
1. Meeting Families Where They Already Are
Defending the strategy, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson pointed to reach “politicians can’t reach” the DfE has 85,000 Instagram followers, Gemma Collins has 2.3 million. If the goal is getting information about vocational routes and V-levels in front of parents and young people who’ll never read a government press release, going to the platforms and voices they already trust isn’t a gimmick. It’s the same logic every brand in the creator economy already works from: you don’t wait for the audience to come to you.
2. Institutions Still Need The Experts To Manage This
The DfE has said it can’t actually put a number on the internal staff time spent producing and running its influencer campaigns – only that there was cost beyond the headline spend. That’s not unusual for an organisation new to this space, but it’s telling. Running influencer marketing properly means briefing, contracting, measuring and reporting on it like any other channel, not treating it as a side project. That’s exactly the infrastructure agencies and talent managers already bring to brand partners, and it’s a strong case for why institutions dipping into this budget line need specialist support, not just a bigger spend.
3. Public Sector Budgets Are A Growth Vertical
A near five-fold jump in a single year isn’t a department dipping a toe in – it’s a real, growing budget line, and the DfE was already the biggest government spender on influencers before this year’s increase. For an industry used to pitching brands and agencies, government and public sector work is emerging as a serious new avenue. More scrutiny and more transparency requirements, yes — but also more validation that creators and talent belong in rooms that were previously closed to them.
What About The Under-16s Ban?
Worth flagging: from Spring 2027, under-16s will be banned from the platforms this kind of campaign relies on most, under new government rules modelled on Australia’s approach. It doesn’t undercut the DfE’s own strategy so much as sharpen it — a lot of this messaging is aimed at parents and 16-18 year olds navigating post-16 choices, both of whom remain reachable. But it’s a reminder that “meeting people where they are” is about to get more complicated, and departments (and brands) leaning on youth-facing influencer strategy will need to think harder about which platforms, and which audiences, they’re actually building for next.
Government spending on influencers isn’t a sign something’s gone wrong with public money. It’s a sign the creator economy has become impossible to ignore — even for the institutions that move slowest.
