Government · UK · Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
89% of Responding Parents Back a Social Media Age Cap
Nearly nine in ten parents who responded to the government's Growing Up in the Online World consultation back a legal minimum age for social media, and almost all of them want it set at 16 or above. These are self-selected consultation responses, not a representative survey.
Source published Summarised
Read the full report from Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Key findings at a glance
- 89% of responding parents and carers backed a legal minimum age of access for social media
- 8,443 parents and carers who said they would support a legal minimum age requirement
- 10% of responding parents and carers did not support a legal minimum age requirement
- 96% of those supporters agreed access should start at 16 or older
- 88% strongly agreed social media access should start at 16 or older
- 8% somewhat agreed social media access should start at 16 or older
- 2% strongly disagreed that access should start at 16 or older
- 9,499 parents and carers answered the minimum-age question on the full-length consultation
- 8,444 parents and carers answered the follow-up question on a minimum age of 16
What the report covers
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology published this ad hoc transparency release on 1 June 2026, after the Secretary of State cited the figures in a media interview on 28 May. It sets out parents' and carers' views on a legal minimum age for social media, drawn from the full-length Growing Up in the Online World consultation that ran from 2 March to 26 May 2026.
The figures cover only respondents who said they have parental or caring responsibility for at least one child aged 21 or under, and who chose to answer the chapter on interventions for safer online experiences. On that basis, 9,499 parents and carers answered the question on whether social media should have a legal minimum age, and 8,444 went on to answer a follow-up on setting that age at 16.
The headline is a strong tilt towards an age gate: 89% support a legal minimum age, and of those, 96% agree access should start at 16 or above. The direction echoes our earlier report on parents' negative views of teen social media, though these particular figures reflect a self-selected group rather than the population at large.
What this means for UK marketers
For anyone planning paid social or influencer activity, the signal here is about where regulation is heading, not just what one consultation says.
Take the numbers at face value first, then the caveats. A legal minimum age of 16 would remove a slice of the addressable audience on every major platform and would tighten the rules around marketing that reaches teenagers. Brands that lean on under-16 reach, whether through influencer partnerships, short-form video or community building, would need to rethink that part of the plan. The political momentum is real: the UK already has the Online Safety Act 2023 on the books, Australia has legislated a social media age limit, and a government minister was willing to put these figures into a broadcast interview. That is the kind of trajectory worth planning around even while the data is provisional.
The practical steps are straightforward. Audit whether any client's social strategy depends on audiences who could fall under a future age threshold, and reduce that exposure before it becomes a compliance problem rather than a planning one. Tighten age-gating and creative compliance on platform campaigns now, since the platforms tend to move ahead of legislation: this is part of how we run Meta and Facebook ads management for clients in regulated and family-facing sectors. And lean into the trust dimension. Parents in this data are clearly anxious about young people's access, so brands marketing to families have more to gain from visible safety and transparency than from chasing the youngest possible audience.
None of this means stripping social out of the mix. It means treating under-16 reach as a shrinking, higher-risk asset and weighting budget towards durable, parent-approved channels. That is the lens we bring to digital marketing strategy for UK brands.
How they got the data
The data comes from the full-length version of the Growing Up in the Online World consultation, which was open to the public through an online form on GOV.UK between 2 March and 26 May 2026. DSIT filtered the responses by the demographic question on parenting or caring responsibility, then tabulated the counts for each answer option and converted them to percentages, rounded to the nearest whole number.
Two limits matter when reading these figures. The sample is self-selecting: it captures parents and carers who were motivated to respond, so it is not representative of parents nationally. And the 96% support for a minimum age of 16 is measured only among those who already backed a minimum age in principle and opted into that chapter, not across all respondents. DSIT describes the figures as provisional, with a full analysis of the consultation to follow.
Government · UK
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From Department for Science, Innovation and Technology · published 01/06/2026