We present the calculation of the leading instanton contribution to the scaling dimensions of twist-two operators with arbitrary spin and to their structure constants in the OPE of two half-BPS operators in $mathcal N=4$ SYM. For spin-two operators we verify that, in agreement with $mathcal N=4$ superconformal Ward identities, the obtained expressions coincide with those for the Konishi operator. For operators with high spin we find that the leading instanton correction vanishes. This arises as the result of a rather involved calculation and requires a better understanding.