The government has spent £2.4m on influencers since July 2024

Which influencers got paid by the government

From those figures, the Department for Education sticks out as it spent the most at more than £700,000, followed by HMRC at nearly £600,000, excluding agency fees.

Campaigns have covered career development, how to access benefits, and the recruitment of teachers and prison officers.

In 2025/26 the DfE alone paid 57 social media influencers. You can read the figures released to parliament in full.

The department said that included Strictly Come Dancing's Oti Mabuse and reality TV star Billie Shepherd. Both backing the government's Best Start in Life childcare campaign.

Departments argued the approach helps government reach people who may be harder to engage through traditional channels.

They added that content creators are paid fairly for their time and expertise, and that all paid marketing campaigns are assessed to ensure they deliver value for money.

Conservative shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood was less impressed.

"The government is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money on influencers in a feeble attempt to cover for its failures," he said.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that if Labour want praise, they must pay for it."

The numbers primarily cover the period when Sir Keir Starmer was prime minister.

However, this wasn't the first time the government sought out social media influencer help, with previous Conservative governments doing the same thing.

Under Rishi Sunak, the Home Office paid TikTok influencers to discourage people from crossing the Channel in small boats.

Government spending will never get 100% support, a well seen occurrence under Burnham's premiership, which includes the falling cost of the asylum system and the Sainsbury's work placements scheme.