Gillian Keegan (née Gibson; born 13 March 1968)[3] is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Education from 2022 to 2024.

In October 2022, she was appointed Secretary of State for Education by new prime minister Rishi Sunak, a position she held until the 2024 general election, in which she was unseated by Jess Brown-Fuller of the Liberal Democrats.

[5] Keegan started her career aged 16 as an apprentice at the AC Delco motor vehicle components factory in Kirkby.

[7] Keegan has said that it was her experiences of trade unionism and the Militant-controlled Liverpool City Council while working in Kirkby in her youth during the 1980s that convinced her to support the Conservative Party.

At the 2015 general election, Keegan stood in St Helens South and Whiston, coming second with 15.9% of the vote behind the Labour candidate Marie Rimmer.

In February 2020, Keegan was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Apprenticeships and Skills, a junior ministerial role at the Department for Education,[27] and was the first former apprentice to hold the office.

She said that although she had been the duty minister for the first two weeks of summer recess, she had obtained special permission to take her government computer with her to continue working during this period.

[32] Keegan endorsed Rishi Sunak in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election[33] and was subsequently demoted when Liz Truss became prime minister in September 2022, serving as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Africa.

Keegan again endorsed Sunak in the October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election and was appointed Secretary of State for Education.

[36] In July 2023, Keegan was reported to have suggested that headteachers should collect absent pupils from home in order to return them to school.

[38] Following an interview on 4 September 2023 with ITV News about the RAAC crisis in a number of schools in England, Keegan, believing the recording had ended, remarked: "Does anyone ever say 'you know what, you've done a fucking good job [be]cause everyone else has sat on their arse and done nothing'?

He later had a role as a crown representative to the Cabinet Office, managing cross-government relationships with BAE Systems as a strategic supplier to the Government.