Philip Michael Lester (born 30 January 1987) is an English YouTuber and presenter. He is best known for his YouTube channels AmazingPhil and Dan and Phil (formerly DanAndPhilGAMES), which, as of March 2026, have 3.85 million and 3.1 million subscribers, respectively. Active since 2006, Lester is considered among the first notable British YouTubers. Lester appeared on a Sunday Times 2019 list of the top influencers in the United Kingdom.
Lester is also known for his frequent collaboration with his partner, Daniel Howell, as part of the entertainment duo Dan and Phil. Together, they presented the Sunday night entertainment show Dan and Phil on BBC Radio 1 from January 2013 until August 2014, and from September 2014 to April 2016 the duo were monthly hosts on the station's The Internet Takeover slot.
Phillip Michael Lester was born on 30 January 1987 and grew up in Rawtenstall, Lancashire. He has an older brother, Martyn. Lester attended Helmshore Primary School and then Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School.
Before making vlogging and radio presenting his full-time profession, Lester's early jobs included dog walking, washing cars, veterinary clinic assistant, working at WHSmith, and appearing in Faintheart. Lester graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English Language and Linguistics in 2008 and a Master of Arts in Video Postproduction with Visual Effects in 2009, both from the University of York.
At age 19 on 27 March 2006, Lester posted his first YouTube vlog titled "Phil's Video Blog" on his main YouTube channel AmazingPhil filmed on a black and white camera he won out of a cereal box. One of the first notable British YouTubers, Lester grew an audience through storytelling, vlogs, challenges as well as comedy, horror and surrealist sketches. He has posted over 350 videos on his channel and, as of November 2025, has over 3.85 million subscribers and 694 million video views. He reached 1 million YouTube subscribers on 6 July 2013, 2 million on 29 August 2014, 3 million on 12 October 2015, and 4 million on 14 March 2017.
Lester also has a second channel LessAmazingPhil, which has over 1 million subscribers and 28 million views, as of November 2025. He occasionally broadcast hour-long live shows on this channel, as well as YouNow livestreams. In late 2020 and early 2021, Lester broadcast on Stereo.
From 2009 to 2011, Lester had a recurring role in RTÉ's Ireland-based cross-media show Apartment Red (also stylised as ApartmentRED), hosted by Stephen Byrne.
In 2010, Lester and Howell took part in the live, annual 24-hour internet broadcast "Stickaid", a fundraiser for charity UNICEF.
In October 2011, Lester and Howell created a collaborative YouTube channel via the network My Damn Channel titled The Super Amazing Project, which the pair hosted through 2012. It featured the duo discussing and investigating paranormal events. Segments included "Viewers Spooky Happenings", where the audience of the show would send in "scary" items for the video bloggers to react to, and "In The News This Week", where the duo recapped recent light-hearted news items and viral videos.
Lester also appeared alongside Howell in Benjamin Cook's twelve part web series Becoming YouTube, and was interviewed on the various topics Cook covered.
On 12 September 2014, Howell and Lester posted the first video on their new gaming YouTube channel, DanAndPhilGAMES. On 8 March 2015, the channel hit 1 million subscribers. It was officially the fastest growing channel on YouTube. DanAndPhilGAMES reached over 3.1 million subscribers. Popular recurring and annual series on this channel include their Sims 4 series, Spooky Week, and Gamingmas. The channel went on hiatus from December 2018 to October 2023.
On 1 April 2015, Lester and Howell launched a spin-off crafts-based channel, DanAndPhilCRAFTS, as an April Fools joke. It featured a single video of them creating square snowflakes out of paper, with an amateur editing style and humour throughout. It reached over 154,000 subscribers and 500,000 total video views in one week. Additional videos were uploaded on April Fool's Day in 2016 and 2017. On 1 April 2024, the channel returned with the video titled 'Slime', which emphasised the horror aspects present in the previous videos.
In 2019, The Sunday Times named Lester one of the top influencers in the UK. From 2019 to 2023, Lester focused on his solo content. He featured in an NHS Charities Together livestream in April 2020 and the YouTube original Hometown Showdown in November 2021. Lester was nominated for a 2021 British LGBT Award in the Online Influencer category, but encouraged viewers to support Abigail Thorn, who had come out as transgender earlier that year. Lester and Thorn both lost to Jessica Kellgren-Fozard.
In October 2025, Lester and Howell began hosting a weekly podcast, Hard Launch with Dan and Phil, on the rebranded Dan and Phil channel (formerly DanAndPhilGAMES).
In 2007, Lester appeared as a contestant on The Weakest Link, making it to the final round. He also played the role of Tim in 2008 film Faintheart and appeared in a Confused.com advertisement later that year. At the time of making the advert, he had around 27,000 subscribers.
Lester was interviewed with other internet entertainers on Channel 4 News in October 2012 about the increased popularity of YouTube and video blogging as a profession.
In 2013 Lester and Howell appeared on Friday Download, a BAFTA award-winning CBBC programme.
From 2014 to 2016 Howell and Lester hosted the worldwide YouTube livestream of the Brit Awards as well as making backstage videos for their channel.