Taking recent policy on education and social mobility as a working example, this article examines developments in the mechanisms for realising policy over the past ten years, as indicative of changes in the neoliberal state. This initial analysis suggests that, despite similarities in the process of policy formation before and after the General Election of 2010, the changing nature of the policy levers chosen by the Coalition Government represents a move from a rationalist, directing state towards a more hybrid but nevertheless neoliberal model. The Government still intends to "steer" the education system through data, however, but in a more developed market system with little supervision, its effects will be less predictable.