2026 Perspectives in Private Equity: Education

This article is part of the “Perspectives in Private Equity” series.

While lagging behind healthcare in the pace of technology adoption – therefore historically attracting less private equity capital - the education sector is rapidly emerging as a sweet spot for investor capital. A flurry of compelling investments have taken place in the growing edtech space over recent years, particularly as scalable, global platforms increasingly demonstrate their ability to enhance outcomes, efficiency and access.

Education has proven to be a robust market for investors, with steady revenue flows that tend to be resilient through economic cycles. Investors typically look at four areas: early childhood education, K-12 education, higher education and workforce development. Structural and regulatory hurdles have tended to prevent much private equity activity in higher education, but we see growing volumes of activity across all other areas, where themes of fragmentation, globalization and tech adoption create thematic growth drivers.

Moving through 2026, we expect the education sector to garner mounting interest from private equity, with buyouts, buy-and-builds, growth equity and structured minority investments all increasingly popular.

A Growing Focus on Health Care Education

One sub-segment of education that has proven to be particularly compelling for private equity in recent years is health care education, sitting at the intersection of two regulatory regimes and supported by strong demographic and labor market tailwinds.

In early childhood and K-12 education, health care and education converge around themes such as behavioral assessment, developmental screening and mental health support. We see a burgeoning number of tech-enabled differentiated learning platforms being developed to cater for neurodivergence, with dyslexia being a big focus for example, and the ability of providers to scale those solutions across borders makes them particularly interesting.

In workforce development, the fact that the aging population is creating such rising demand for health care services globally is leading to a huge appetite for solutions that help address labor shortages. Providers that can support the reskilling and upskilling, shorten pathways to clinical roles or offer expedited degree programs are drawing significant investor attention. As a result, health care education assets are increasingly competitive, with specialist consumer and technology investors, healthcare-focused funds and education sponsors all actively pursuing opportunities.

Reskilling Workers Creates Opportunities

Another area where technology-motivated investors converge with those focused on education is in workforce development, where a growing number of tech-enabled B2B businesses are stepping up to support employer challenges. With a huge demand for corporate training and reskilling driven by the advancement of AI and a focus on retention of talent, scalable solutions are growing in popularity.

Workforce development is also an area that has been proven to be resilient through economic cycles, with workers and employers doubling down on skills development through challenging periods.  From a regulatory perspective, this segment has generally been less constrained than other areas of education, further supporting sustained investment activity.

Edtech Booms Globally

The education investment ecosystem benefits from a healthy early-stage segment, with a large volume of often AI-driven start-ups currently flourishing through seed and early financing rounds. Benefitting from the pandemic’s acceleration of online learning, increased internet access and AI integration for personalization, key trends include augmented and virtual reality learning, cloud-based systems, microlearning and building digital credentials.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global edtech market was valued at $190 billion in 2025 and is set to grow to nearly $600 billion by 2034.

Regulatory Changes Proposed

With the increasing prevalence of private capital in the education market – often stepping in to address funding gaps and drive innovation - regulators are paying close attention to the role of private equity. Education remains heavily regulated and investors must navigate a complex compliance landscape at both local and state level when partnering with non-profits and regulated education providers.

As we have seen in the healthcare space, policy-makers will scrutinize private equity involvement in certain sectors to ensure it supports broader societal goals. For example, several proposals to restrict investment into healthcare education and college sports are being looked at in the U.S.  The key challenge for regulators will be striking the right balance – supporting public-private partnerships that foster innovation and improve outcomes, while maintaining appropriate oversight to protect students, patients and communities.