2026 LIST: 77 Skills for a public sector comms team

What skills does today’s public sector comms team need? Here’s some ideas to get you thinking for 2026.

When I first moved from journalism to the public sector 20 years ago the focus was the press office. After all, this was how people often consumed news and information locally.

But as print has faded and newsrooms have declined the importance of local titles has diminished. Yet, in a crisis they still play a fundamental role. 

Today’s 2026 team needs to have a far broader set of skills.

There are core skills and then there are specialisms.

Here’s something based on data, best practice and insight. There is almost no way that an individual can know all these skills. So relax. But there are some core that skills that everyone should know.

The aim of this is to inform discussion.

Where are you?

Where is your team?

How can you get there?

Core skills

STRATEGIC: 

Know your organisation’s priorities and how the team aims to deliver them |

Be able to understand the complicated big picture and translate them into plain English |

Know how your governing document – such as its constitution – shapes and limits the output of the communications team |

Know where and how the team is politically restricted from political activity outside of work |

GENERALIST CORE SKILLS: 

Know your audience and help others to know theirs | 

Know the age and cultural demographics of your area | 

Know which channel is the most effective for all demographics be this print, social, web, radio, podcast or TV | 

Know how to create content effectively in print, web and socials | 

Know how and what to evaluate with the service area you work with | 

Know how to write a comms plan with the input of others | 

Know how to plan, shoot, edit and post effective vertical and landscape video |

Know how to choose the best person or people to front your content and explain your decision with insight | 

Know that social media is social and is a two-way platform | 

Know how the algorithms change on the key platforms | 

Know how to speak human | 

Know how to educate the client | 

Know how to be a diplomat and know the big and small ‘p’ political awareness | 

Know how to speak truth to power | 

Know how to tell stories | 

Know how to add emotion | 

Know how to interpret data | 

Know how to respond in an emergency | 

Know how to communicate with head and heart and when to do them | 

Know and understand jargon but translate it into plain English | 

Know GDPR | 

Know copyright law with images, video, text and generative AI content | 

Know the basics of RIPA | 

Know the HSE legislation | 

Know how to create accessible content | 

Know brand guidelines and when they are applicable |

Know when to engage and when not to online | 

Know UK Government guidance on AI | 

Know your own organisation’s AI policy |

Know that it is never wise to upload data to a Large Language Model unless it is cleared for publication | 

Know GCS guidelines for safe use of generative platforms | 

Know how and when to safely create words, images and video using AI | 

Know your social media house rules and when to enforce them |

Know the importance of internet comms to an organisation | 

PERSONAL SKILLS:

Know how to work as a team and as an individual | 

Know how to work with a service area | 

Know how to work with empathy |

ETHICS: 

Know your own professional standards and those expected by your organisation | 

Know how your organisation’s constitution or founding legislation affects your job | 

SPECIALIST SKILLS

WORDS: 

Know how to write good content in print, social and web | 

Know how to write a marketing email subject line and improve open rates and click throughs | 

IMAGES: 

Know how to take and edit pictures | 

Know how to commission freelance photography |  

Know how to use and update an image library with metadata |

PRINT: 

Know how to work with designers within deadlines |

MARKETING:

Know when and where to deploy marketing and when not to |

WEB: 

Know how to edit and create a webpage | 

Know basic current principles of SEO and what metadata is |

Known how to embed shareable content | 

AUDIO: 

Know when and how to create a podcast | 

Know how to pitch to a podcast | 

Know how to send an audio file to a reporter that can be re-used in a bulletin |

Know the effective length of a soundbite and how to shape it |

VIDEO:

Know how to brief a videographer |

Know how to work with and create brand guidelines online |

COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT: 

Know how to find and connect with influencers | 

Know when and how to engage with people in their own online spaces | 

Know how to build and maintain an online community | 

MEDIA RELATIONS: 

Know how to log and take a media query | 

Know how to deal with a media query and its sign-off | 

Know how to build relationships with reporters | 

Know the reach of each news outlet that covers your area |

Know how to use web tools to capture coverage |

Know how to disseminate coverage within the organisation without risk of copyright infringement |

Know how to select a news, stock or library image for a media release | 

Know how to make a complaint | 

SOCIAL MEDIA: 

Know how social media and customer services work | 

Know how to search social media for groups | 

Know how to create thought leadership content |

Know how to deal with comment, criticism and abuse and plan to deal with issues on a future campaign or issue |

OPEN DATA:

Know what open data is and what obligations your organisation has |

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: 

Know how to safely use large language models to generate ideas and content | 

Know how to build a GPT to automate tasks safely |

Know how to write prompts that get the most out of AI tools |

Know how to identify fake images and video |

INTERNAL COMMS: 

Know face-to-face, intranet, social and print channels and which is most effective for each task |

For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape. 

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Picture credit: Creative Commons Liverpool Echo seller, 2010, by Gary Rogers.

CLICK STOP: Facebook is looking at charging for you to add links 

Buckle up, everyone but it looks as though the days of posting links to Facebook for free may be numbered.

In the early days of social media, the idea of adding a link to drive traffic was the cornerstone of many strategies.

But in a series of developments Meta is exploring radical restrictions on pages’ ability to post links. 

I’ll set out what they may mean in this post. 

Links are bad

Firstly, links. I’ve been highlighting the folly of posting links for some time. Algorithms hate them. It is far more effective to tell the story on the platform.

Indeed, the most recent Meta data release on what makes up people’s timelines underlines the folly of the practice. Links now make up just 1.9 per cent of people’s timelines. That’s roughly the same percentage chance you have of winning a prize buying a National Lottery ticket.

Feeling lucky? 

Here’s the data:

While this data shows the tactical pointlessness of posting links on Facebook there are noises that it may soon be physically impossible to do.

Meta wants pages to pay 

Late last year, Meta trialled a scheme to limit the number of links a Facebook page could post for free. 

It’s unclear how exactly this may take shape in the future. It may or may not affect adding a link to the comments as per the current algorithm-dodging technique. Some reports say this turns the link comments to plain text.

All this has been seen as a nudge for pages to become Meta Verified. 

Meta Verified costs between £14.99 and around £300 for the top tier.  This status gives pages some protection against impersonation as well as access to customer service for common issues. 

Given how hard it is to contact Facebook on matters there’s an argument to say this could potentially pay for itself.

Meta Verify for Business also allows the ability to add links in a very restricted way to Reels. The Meta Verify for Business price list is here. Such status would cover Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram all in one. 

Meta wants people to pay to be users

Last year, a British woman successfully took Meta to court to demand they stop serving her adverts. ‘Go her’, I suspect you are saying. In the wake of this, Meta drew-up some changes. In short, they’ll stop serving you ads but you need to pay. 

As a result, Meta have announced plans for a premium subscription for users for Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. In the UK, that’ll cost an individual £2.99 for web or £3.99 for the Android or iOS app and rewards the user by having an ad-free timeline. It appears not to be an option yet for a corporate page.

Those who invest big money on Facebook ads and the like are somewhat troubled by this. It means they are pitching their ad to a smaller pool. But most public sector Facebook accounts don’t really have large ad spends. So, that particular element won’t affect them.

There you go. As I blogged last month, what you think social media is is now nostalgia. 

This is more evidence.

For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape. 

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Picture credit: Computer in a 1970s office by Tyne & Wear Museums.

IN 2026: It’s absolutely time to re-think what you know about social media

Back in the olden days, the Christmas Radio Times used to be the absolute oracle on what to watch over the festive period.

It was published with a suitably seasonal cover and would give all the listings for all the channels. 

On Christmas Day in 1982,if you wanted to watch the Two Ronnies Christmas show you’d need to be watching BBC1 at 7.30pm. If someone wanted to see ‘The World of James Joyce’ on BBC2 they’d need to record it on VHS. 

There’s a copy of a Christmas edition of the Radio Times on ebay currently listed at £57. No wonder. Nostalgia is costly. 

This Christmas, traditional channels,recorded their lowest year ever. The highest ranking programme pulled in just 4.3 million viewers for the Strictly Christmas Special. In comparison, the Morcambe & Wise Special in 1977 reached 28.8 million viewers.

What you think about social media may be nostalgia.

Here are seven things that don’t apply anymore.

Social media is not now for friends and family 

Social media is a way of filling spare time and follow celebrities. It is not about keeping up with friends and sharing opinions. The data absolutely shows this.

TikTok was the first to blow a hole in this approach. It deliberately chose content for you to see based on your interests not your followers. Others have followed. 

For example, Facebook’s algorithm which was once just friends, family and brands is now made up of a third ‘unconnected’ updates. These updates are from accounts, groups and pages you are not following but you may find interesting depending on how you engage with content.

What you can do: Look beyond your followers and look to improve the quality of your overall content. 

Your X follower numbers are now irrelevant

Back in the day, comms teams used to report the follower numbers as a metric. An account with 50,000 followers was good going. 

In the old days, if you opened-up your device at 10.20am and scrolled you’d see the most recent tweets. Then, that got changed to follow Facebook’s algorithmically selected updates.

A few days ago X published their most recent algorithm which had a few surprises. More emphasis has now been placed on the ‘For You’ page. In short, this means that tweets will be algorithmically selected for you as you open your divice may not be from people you are following. 

What you can do: This is a further argument to pivot away from X. 

More: Here.

Instagram is about video now not pictures

Instagram used to be a place for curated and polished images. It’s now a place for video. Fifty per cent of time spent on then platform is spent watching video. Not admiring people’s breakfasts.

What you can do: Focus on more effective video.

More: Here.

On X the more you tweet now the less people will see

Not only that, but the more you tweet the less people will see your content. Why? Because X wants to avoid overloading tweets from one or two accounts. 

X used to have a central place in an emergency. One organisation would post realtime updates and others would point to it. This approach has been undermined. 

On its own this doesn’t mean posting to X in a crisis is wrong. As Merseyside Police showed after the Liverpool trophy parade car striking pedestrians others will share and amplify it.

More: Here.

What you can do: Tweet less.

Social media isn’t now about driving traffic anymore 

If it ever was, social media in 2026 is about rewarding content that users have to stay on the platform to see or watch. All the main platforms punish those who try and take people to the press release on the website. Or any content on the website, to be honest. 

This has been the case for a number of years. 

What you can do: Tell the story on the platform.

More: Here, here and here.

Images you see are likely now not likely to be real

Since the advent of AI tools, images have become shaped at the very least by AI. Forbes suggests this is now 71 per cent of all images. 

What you can do: Invest in a tool like aiornot and focus on real, human images to stand out from the crowd. 

More: Here.

Comments you may see under posts may not be genuine

Many political parties and foreign governments have invested resources into influencing the debate by taking part in the debate directly. 

More: Here and here.

Social media is now not free

No it isn’t, and I don’t mean the time you spend.

LinkedIn has a premium level that gives users a reach advantage. Facebook has introduced an optional £3.99 charge to dodge ads. X for some time has had levels of payment rewarded with reach.

Free access to the big town square is long gone.

For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape. 

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Picture credit: VHS camera by Dhscommtech at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

NUMBERS UP: What the Reuters Institute predictions means for public sector comms

A couple of times a year I’ll slip in at the back at journalism conferences. It’s the most valuable learning I’ll do all year.

I used to be a journo back in the day. But I don’t go to reminisce or trade war stories. I go to learn what the future of public sector communications should look like. I use the word ‘should’ deliberately rather than will.

Earlier this month, the Reuters Institute published Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026. It’s a thought-provoking document. Stephen Waddington has written a really useful analysis for PR people. 

Here’s what struck me:

  • AI summaries have had an impact. Bread and butter content, such as listings or lifestyle, is better produced by AI. So news titles are moving away from it.
  • The great and the good are using their own channels or sympathetic content creators. The need to only speak to a journalist is a long time gone. 
  • News titles are identifying what they can do better. Human stories, investigations and on-the-ground reporting will see more focus. 
  • People are consuming more news from creators rather than titles. We don’t wait for the 9’O’Clock news. We may see what a news commentator is saying.
  • There will be less ‘service journalism.’ These are listings or advice to solve everyday problems.
  • There will be more focus on original reporting and on-the-ground investigations has value. Here. the human beats AI. 
  • There will be more video. YouTube is the particular focus with TikTok and Instagram following.
  • There will be less focus on Facebook. As it becomes harder to generate link clicks this is not a surprise. 
  • There has been no amazing breakthrough with AI. Jobs have not been created or lost as a result of tools. 
  • Traffic from search is down and will continue to fall. That’ll be AI summaries. 

What the public sector can learn from the report

We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. I keep saying there is more change in the last 12-months than the last 12-years. It’s still true.

  • Media relations remains important. The skills of the old-style press offiocer are still needed.
  • More video. I run courses that show comms teams to plan, shoot, edit and post video. Of course, I’m going top highlight this. But with titles focusssing more on video the bright media officer would be well served to add video to the text of the press release and the image. These may well be B-roll footage the journo can re-work.
  • Facebook. Two thirds of the UK use Facebook and two thirds of them use Facebook groups. The platform retains a central position in the conversation. It is harder to produce clicks, sure, but that shouldn’t be a central driver of a public sector comms team.
  • Content. As media titles have identified routine announcements as being their bread and butter stop expecting them to cover routine announcements. If they must be covered, use you own channels. 
  • The webteam. The whole issue of AIn summaries cannibalising traffic should be a canary in the mine for the web team. I await with interest what the public sector’s response will be. Remember SEO? The web team need to be looking at AEO – answer engine optimisation. 

Fascinating, isn’t it?

For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape. 

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PLAYBOOK DATA #1: Benchmarking AI in public sector comms

Well, it’s been quite a week for AI in the public sector.

First, West Midlands Police admitted a controversial decision to ban visiting supporters of an Israeli football team was in part based on an AI hallucination.

Second, a map published to show railway investment in the northern of England bore no relation to geography and thought to be riven with AI hallucination.

As we know, a hallucination is an AI result which has been entirely made-up by AI.

No doubt, there will be an investigation where lessons to learn are available. 

All this leads me to a timely analysis of my AI public sector tracker survey which I published last week in the Essential Public Sector Comms Playbook 2026. 

It’s timely to go through that data and reach some conclusions.

The public sector is using AI but not always fessing up to it

In the survey I carried out in Autumn 2025, 80 per cent of public sector communicators say they are using AI either daily or weekly. Yet, little more than half of this figure – 44 per cent – work where there is an organisation-wide policy. Not only that, one in 10 have a comms team AI policy.

All this represents a stunning safety gap.

Using AI without guard rails means you can produce content that is flawed. Trust is in short supply at the moment and the sure way of burning through a chunk of it is to do something that people are not aware or in support of. Like, for example, using AI without being transparent.

With an AI policy you can build in safeguards and oversight. 

Without it, it’s a free-for-all. 

If I was ahead of comms in the public sector I’d by lying awake at night about this.

Not only that, but organisations are concealing how they use AI. In the survey, 45 per cent don’t admit to using it. Less than 10 per cent of public sector comms mark each piece of content that has involved AI in the creation.

All this is understandable. Telling people you are using AI may lead to criticism and awkward questions. A good media relations advisor would say that it’s wiser to choose the time and place to have that conversation rather than have it uncovered through an FOI request or some such like.

AI in the public sector is about ideas not images or video

It’s clear that the public sector is remarkably consistent in the way it uses AI. 

Using AI for idea generation is used by 84 per cent of people. That’s an increase of eight per cent on the previous survey three months earlier.

Using AI for press releases is the second most single popular use with 39 per cent. That’s a rise of two per cent compared to the previous poll.

Image generation is the third most popular use with 20 per cent a decline of three per cent. Webpage creation (13 per cent) is fourth highest with editing video fifth (nine per cent). Creating audio accounts for just four per cent. That’s a fall of two petr cent.

The survey was carried out in Autumn 2025 with more than 320 people taking part. 

What to do

The one thing not to do is ban the use of AI outright as a  matter of principle. But I would be holding fire somewhat until you had a policy in place. This needs to be a set of principles on how this will be used. 

As a first step, a Blue Peter knowledge of AI is needed by everyone in the comms team as a minimum. Beyond that, a policy that helps shape your approach would be essential. 

For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape. 

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TRAINING DATES: Because there’s been more change in the last 12-months than the last 12-years

Here’s a bulletin board-style update on public training sessions I offer in early 2026.

This suite of training goes into detail to give the skills and insight you need to be comms professional.

This is suitable for the new starter, the senior person looking to update skills or the savvy head of comms looking to future proof their team.

These are public deliveries of sessions but they can be delivered in-house for you too.

For a taster of the insight and expertise do take a look at the ESSENTIAL PUBLIC SECTOR COMMS PLAYBOOK.

ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER

This is the one that’s the overview. It tackles the media landscape in 2026 and who is consuming what and where. It also looks at comms planning and evaluation.

There are six sessions to the workshop delivered over a number of weeks. 

They start:

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“Dan’s training gave our team a really good overview of the current digital comms and media landscape.” – Caroline Rowe, Head of Communications and Engagement, NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board.

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This shows you how to plan, shoot, edit and post effective video.

There are four sessions across two days.

They start:

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“Your session was the spark that kicked me on. Highly recommended.” – Kevin Turner, policy and stakeholder relations manager, Sanctuary Housing.

ESSENTIAL AI FOR PUBLIC SECTOR COMMS

This gives you the basics to understand AI and how to use it safely in a public sector context.

There are five sessions delivered over a number of weeks.

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“I wanted to get on and use AI – but didn’t know where to start. Actually, I did know where to start, I was just waiting for Dan’s course to come along and then book up quickly.” – Will Conaghan, communications manager Stafford Borough Council and Cannock Chase District Council.

ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS

This gives you tips, strategies and confidence to pitch to a journalist and deal with media queries.

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“Dan’s courses are awesome – they’ve been vital in helping keep the knowledge and skills of me, and those of my teams, up-to-date and relevant for the job we need to do.” – Bridget Aherne, head of comms, Bury Council. 

Picture credit: Alamy.

Drop me a line for a chat, for more information or to book.

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CORE SKILLS: Introducing the Essential Playbook for Public Sector Comms 2026

Here it is. The Essential 2026 Playbook for Public Sector Comms written with you in mind.

It is a 23-page document with a snapshot of useful data and approaches for key challenges we are all facing.

There are things that can help shape your work today and I hope it does.

It’s the download that I would have wanted if I was still working in the public sector. I hope you find it handy even if you are in a neighbouring sector. It’s also a taster for the training I offer.

In it…

  • Social media stats for the UK.
  • Original research on what public sector content works for TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
  • A helpful new flow chart for how to deal with comment, criticism and abuse online (yes, because sometimes people shout).
  • What good looks like for public sector content.
  • What an AI policy looks like.
  • Insight and analysis from the benchmark AI survey to see how you and your team compares. 

Download it here…

Dan Slee Essential Public Sector Comms Playbook 2026 08.01.26 HRDownload

Why do this?

Every week I’ll read dozens of sources and also go through piles of data to improve the training and advice I offer. Every week I’m reshaping and updating. I thought it would be a canny idea to share some of that insight.

Some of it is drawn from obscure Ofcom datasets. Some of it is from original research I’ve carried out. 

I hope you find this useful and an entry point to the training I offer. The download is the tip of the iceberg. 

Why that look in particular?

The future’s a bit scary at times, isn’t it?

In this download I’ve gone back to the 1970s and 1980s with old pictures. In particular, duotone. That’s the cover images that are black and orange. I wanted something familiar and reassuring rather than futuristic. The school textbooks I remember were often like this.

Big shout to freelance graphic designer Stuart Marsh.

For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape. 

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For feedback or anything else drop me a line here…

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WE’RE OUT: What communicating snow and ice can teach you about Facebook

It’s like the mafia, just when you thought you were free it pulls you back.

It’s winter, so of course I’m fascinated at how the public sector is communicating gritting and transport problems. Isn’t everyone?

Going back more than 15 years there was a group of us who used Twitter to tweet grit updates. Twitter Gritter was new stuff. We found that when we tweeted in real time that the team had gone out some people felt informed.

Other people would make the same range of comments. Is my street gritted? So, we created a grit map and linked it in a stock response. Have you even been out? We told them what time and when. 

We got a bit bolder and would say things like:

Grit is not fairy dust. It will not make the roads behave like they do on a warm summer day and turn cars into bumper cars.

In January 2026, snow and ice has hit parts of England, Wales and Scotland.

So, I was drawn in to see how one channel in particular has been performing and what tactics have been working.

I looked at some metrics on Facebook so I could compare and contrast.

This isn’t exhaustive by any means.

Here’s what I learned.

If you take away grit bins people will kick off

In Dudley, where I live, the council decided to remove more than 300 grit bins to save money. I’ve long thought that the Holy Trinity of local gov comms is gritting, potholes and dog mess. Mess with gritting and you are asking for trouble. 

No shade on the Dudley Council comms team, but almost 10 per cent of comments made on Facebook were negative. There was very little evidence of replies to those comments. Even a link to the comments and complaints page would have been an idea. I get why people are reluctant to engage. I do.

Open the door and customer services walks straight in

People are making observations about areas where grit is needed, roads are icy or action needs to be taken. There was little evidence of this being gathered and sent through to the teams where this could make a difference. As a resident, this must be frustrating.

Switching off comments is an option

One council, Highland Council, turned off commenting entirely. There’s absolutely no way that people can have their comment overlooked if they can’t make one. I won’t be harsh as I don’t know the reasoning for this. I wouldn’t rule it out on principle.

Dealing with comments is also an option

ScotRail in particular dealt with comments as they came in. But they’re a rail company and rail companies have historically have the resources to be brilliant at this. If you acknowledge people they will like it. There was little negativity on this page.

If you communicate in a timely manner people will thank you

Aberdeenshire Council’s page showed positive comments outranking negative four to one. That’s not always the way.

Communicating everything is an option

One council posted 44 times in three days. They cover a large area so this is understandable. But what this has the benefit of is creating within that hyperlocal content which is then sharable. People from that particular community can relate to that particular road closure.

Content which shows what you are up against flies

The stills from the cab of a gritter lorry facing snow drifts is compelling.

Shares… just look at the shares

Once again, this small snapshot shows that Facebook isn’t about the page. It’s about ther page creating sharable content that can be shared across Facebook. Groups are a big part of this. An update on an issue in a particular community will see that content shared in that particular community. 

Snow and grit is a mental health issue

This isn’t shown in the numbers directly but the level of abuse and criticism does take a toll. Those closest I came to losing it was after a 36-hour period monitoring social channels I needed to just close my laptop, pass on the duty to a colleague for a few hours and get some balance. I worry that isn’t happening. This should be a team game.

Snow and grit is a planning in advance thing 

I’d argue that everytime you plan to launch something you know is going to generate opinions a planning exercise needs to take place. What are they likely to say? What bullet points shall we create to help us push back if we need to? Ask yourself these questions.

For snow and ice, the answers are here’s the grit map so you can check your road. We don’t treat every road, we don’t send 14-tonne waste lorries to collect refuse on icy roads because its dangerous and more beside. Have these bullet points close to you.

For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape. 

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THE PATH AHEAD: 25 predictions for public sector comms in 2026

It’s the time of year when I like to think about where we are headed and this I’m going to cite former football manager Tony Pulis, Albert Einstein and Taylor Swift.

The former Stoke manager has spoken about the need for today’s manager to be better at ‘managing up.’ That’s the art of bringing the club’s board with you. 

That skill in public sector comms will become absolutely critical in a year of crisis and change for reasons I’ll set out.

Einstein struggled at school but made time to learn in his own time. The leaders of 2035 will be learning in their own time too. The very bright team will encourage regular learning.

Taylor Swift? 

“Long story short, I survived.”

There will be change, redundancy and re-applying for jobs. There will be short term pain I don’t minimise. I can only offer my own experience with time and perspective.

How did last year’s predictions work out? 

68 per cent I got wholly right 

16 per cent partly right 

16 per cent wrong

Predictions I got right

The media landscape did continue to splinter. 

Algorithms did continue to edge out friends and family as the driver of traffic on social channels. 

Good content did beat churning out noise. 

Teams did start to have input into the corporate AI policy as well as have one for their comms team.

BlueSky did continue to be niche.

Staff face were facing perma-crisis fatigue so brighter heads of comms invested in them.

Vertical video did break out into the mainstream.

Mass readership local news will look even less like what local newspapers used to be.

Teams did struggle to reach people without ad spend.

Teams have been siloed in a Microsoft AI landscape ignoring the better tools out there.

Legacy tech in an AI world has been a problem.

Teams have been trapped in a Gen X landscape and have not taken on Gen Z people fast enough.

The risk of not bringing the organisation along with you was a problem and remains one.

The risk of not learning new skills was a problem and remains one.

Hmmm… partly right

Hiring a chief story teller did gain wide traction in PR but not in the public sector.

Recruiting an army of advocates to share your content in their communities was be one of the best tactical things you could have done. Few did.

There wasn’t a major be AI fluff up. But there were minors ones.

No

I’m not sure that regional news shifted meaningfully to email first newsletters. 

I don’t think the public sector embraced AI cartoons.

I don’t think teams have really embraced AI agents let alone AI swarms.

This year predictions have grouped themselves into strategic, tactics, media landscape and continuous professional development. 

Predictions

Strategic

This year will cover an epoch that will be the biggest change in the public sector for 50 years. Some shifts will be self-inflicted like huge reorganisations of the NHS and local government in England. Some will be big picture like AI. In the words of the late Robert Phillips, the PR futurist, ‘embrace chaos.’ Because that’s what the future holds.

Evaluation needs to change but the public sector will be slow to make that change. It needs to move away from the number of web hits, media queries, Facebook followers and likes. It needs to take into account the fracturisation of the media landscape. Those Facebook group posts, those email alerts, that disinformation challenged. How to count that?

As people turn more to Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Copilot for search the corporate website will decline in importance. The challenge is that information gleaned from these sources may be inaccurate. Correcting misinformation is needed. But simply putting it on the web is a not a magic cure-all.

The Daily Mail will run a story saying AI is a fad that’s now over. Just as it did with the internet in 2000. On a macro level, there will be an AI hype correction. Gartner’s hype cycle shows generative AI moving from the peak of inflated expectations into the trough of disillusionment. It could move from there to the plateau of productivity. That’s when it gets truly useful. Before we discovered Google and Amazon there was the dot com bubble.

Local government communicators will have to deal more with more Councillors, Council Leaders and candidates who don’t observe conventions, advice or the law. Comms teams need to remain calm. They need to refresh their knowledge of what local government comms can legally do and say. They need to communicate this 365 days a year locally to all parties. Not the morning after an election win. Demonstrate you are politically restricted. Building basic relationships with party leaders to re-iterate this point would be sensible. So would joining a union. These influences will be felt less strongly in NHS, police and fire & rescue.

If they haven’t done already, good communicators at all levels should understand how algorithms have changed and educate the organisation accordingly. That’s things like links should not be used as a primary tactic, for example. That’s so 2011. Without doing this your output may be pointing in the wrong direction.

As pressure grows on services, there will be greater pressure for a slew of vanity comms. That’s comms to look good in front of an incoming administration, a new organisation or to help look for a new job. This will play havoc with the team’s priorities left unchecked. Does your organisation have a list of actual priorities? You’ll need this to bat away the flim-flam.

With all this change, some people will forget internal comms. If you forget internal comms you are stuffed. It’s really hard to evaluate this but in a time of change talk to your staff. This is less prediction and more advice. But this is internal comms to staff but also managing upwards. 

An AI plan for a comms team will become essential. This will work out what AI is, some basic training and working out how the organisation can use it constructively and safely.

The smart team will further streamline approval processes. Sign-offs built for the print age do not work when the demand is often real time.

The gig economy will be more of a thing in the public sector. The sector is in the middle of a shake-up but still needs hands to do certain tasks. Drawing on some experience when and where it is needed will become routine. 

There will be more people demanding more failing tactics. The poster used to work. So the answer is more posters. This needs to be resisted. Some of this will be service areas and some will be the team itself. 

Tactics

Human storytelling will stand out even more strongly. Enshittification is the precise term that describes the process where something online starts off good then gets filled with rubbish. In social spaces, the amount of AI slop and abuse is noticeable. But so is the nurse talking about what motivated her to become a nurse in the first place.

Tactical print will be more effective. Cutting through some noise is a strength of tactical print. It’s novelty value will cut through. It can also land through a letterbox without a crowd of hostile people commenting on it.

More comms workflows will be automated by AI. Rather than being a threat the process that trims minutes from tasks will be a benefit. 

There will be things of benefit that AI does at the end of 2026 that we could only dream about at the start of the year. There’s no point predicting a widget that does ‘X’. But when that widget comes along we’ll all be impressed.

The media landscape

In regional journalism, there will be even fewer reporters and BBC Local Democracy Reporters will become even more important. People who work in journalism talk about AI creating a ‘bloodbath’ amongst an industry whose senior people are failing to grasp how AI will affect them. This will play out as fewer reporters paying even less attention to what you have to say. BBC-funded reporters will be the exception to this. They are the final bastion to what old journalism looked like. Elsewhere that kind of reporting will get even harder.

A crisis scenario made worse by AI is around the corner. We learned hard lessons about social media in 2011’s riots. We will learn more about AI and emergency planning in 2026.

More disinformation. With the rise of the far-right and Russian influence the public sector strategically needs to understand what disinformation is and how to challenge it.

One of the most significant barriers to good communication will continue to be the radicalised over 50s. Some public sector Facebook pages are magnets for bile and misunderstanding. Shaping a way to triage debate and misinformation will be the most important day-to-day challenge.

There will be more very good and more very bad video. Some of it will tick a box and will fail. The best will have a hook, be made for the specific channel and will work. The Chief Executive may hate some of it. They are not the audience.

Continuous professional development

The public sector may finally wake up to the idea that niche content will perform better than a single loud broadcast across multiple channels. We’re not in Kansas anymore and it’s not 1990. The entire population of Stafford does not watch the 9 O’Clock News and read The Stafford Newsletter. The bright comms team will create content for the Polish WhatsApp, the email list aimed at parents and the Reel aimed at under 24s. They will be entirely different pieces of content. An army of advocates will make this easier. The Polish employee who can share content to the Polish WhatsApp will add value.

There is an immense need for teams to come together to schedule regular time to train more, listen more and to reflect more. All this change would have been hard pre-pandemic. Even if WFH was ended tomorrow, it will remain hard. Time booked in for training or to compare notes is not a luxury. It is survival. This is where you can plot a path for the future pf the team and your own future. This will involve listening, learning and adapting. This may be thorny. It will always be useful. This is best done at scheduled times face-to-face. If the team won’t do it, do it yourself. 

Some people will ‘Brooks’ it. Brooks was the character in the film ‘Shawshank Redeption’ who becomes institutionalised. He cannot learn new things. Some comms people buffeted by years of change will make a conscious decision to stop learning. This is understandable but is going to be tricky for leaders.

The comms person who is still in the sector in 2032 will have set aside time to learn new skills now. A comms person who doesn’t invest an hour a week minimum now in their own R&D won’t have the skills. The bright head of comms will encourage this. Reassurance is going to be a big part of this. The sharp officer will just do it anyway. 

That’s it.

Thanks for reading.

For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape. 

ESSENTIAL AI FOR PUBLIC SECTOR COMMS, 

ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER, 

ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS and 

ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED.

Picture credit: By Footpath Sign by Keith Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0.

UPDATED: UK social media statistics for 2025 and other helpful numbers

I must have said the line ‘more change in the last 12-months than the last 12-years’ dozens of times in the last 12-months. It’s still true.

There are rare chances to assess just how much change. One such opportunity is Ofcom’s Online Nations report which takes a chalk mark and compares it to previous years.

I’ve read it so you don’t have to.

Perhaps more has stayed the same than you may think but there are clear signs of movement around the increase in AI for search. 

As a former journo, I’m comforted that news consumption has stayed largely the same. 

The top 18 UK social media channels

Why 18? It’s an arbitrary number that allows me to capture BeReal which was top 10 a few years ago and has now dropped out of fashion.

YouTube is still largest. Some things don’t change. YouTube remains the largest UK platform reaching 66.9 per cent of the over 18 population. Facebook & Messenger is again edged into second place.

WhatsApp is huge. WhatsApp is in third place reaching 63.4 per cent of all adults with Instagram reaching more than half of all adults.

Reddit is what? Now the surprises. Reddit has moved up into 5th place growing 88 per cent over the last two years. However, as you go and Google what that platform actually is, the data shows people spend a mere four minutes a day there. Compare that to the 51 minutes on YouTube and almost three quarters of an hour that’s thin gruel.

X keeps falling but not as fast as you may think. Also worth a raised eyebrow is the decline of X. It’s been falling for several years but the surprise is that its only six per cent down year-on-year reaching 27.8 per cent of the UK population.

X rivals have not really taken up the challenge. Bluesky has plateaued atlas than three million users – that’s 3.9 per cent of the UK population. Meta-owned Threads still remains the largest X competitor but their numbers have levelled out at just over five per cent.

Elsewhere…

AI is having an impact on search. While Google is pre-eminent on three billion UK searches AI-powered ChatGPT has emerged as its rival with 252 million searches.

AI search is growing. Almost a third of all search has an AI summary. This includes Google and the AI providers. This wasn’t measured two years ago.

The internet continues to be everywhere but we’re alive to the fact it may not be always positive. We spend on average 4.5 hours a day online in our own time. A third of us think the web is overall good for society.

Almost four in 10 people have seen something upsetting online in the previous month. This includes misinformation, abuse or violent content.

We’re still using the web for news. Overall, 97 per cent of people have visited a news site. The BBC is the largest share with eight in 10 visiting it in the previous month. The Sun is in second place with The Guardian third. We spend 10 minutes a day consuming news online.

WhatsApp is trouncing its messaging rivals. Ninety per cent of people who use the internet use the platform. This is almost double Messenger in second place. 

WhatsApp is the most widely used app. Nine in 10 have used the tool beating Facebook into second and Google Maps intio third.

Children are spending time on the internet. A 13-year-old will spend four hours a day. That’s twice as much as an eight-year-old.
You can read the full report here.