Browser does not support script.
Explore our glossary of adult social care terms, created to support consistent understanding across Skills for Care's Workforce Intelligence reports, data visualisations, and downloads.
Download our glossary of terms
These are some of the general terms we use to describe aspects of adult social care.
We distinguish between organisations, establishments and employers:
Organisation, either a local authority, a charity or voluntary body, or a private company that is providing adult social care services. An organisation may provide care at a single establishment (location) or may have several establishments where this happens; for example, a chain of care homes would be classed a single organisation.
Establishment, a single location where care is provided. This may be a care home, or head office for a domiciliary care service.
The ASC-WDS collects information on 35 types of care services. These are also then aggregated into four groups for the purposes of analysis. Selected main care services within each group are:
Adult residential, including care homes with nursing and care homes without nursing.
Adult day care services
Adult domiciliary care, including supported living and extra care housing.
Adult community care, including community support and outreach, social work and care management, carers’ support, occupational or employment-related services, and other adult community care services.
The ASC-WDS collects information on 32 job roles, which are categorised into four groups for the purposes of analysis. The main roles within each job role group are as follows:
Managers, including senior, middle and first-line managers, registered managers, deputy managers, team leaders, supervisors, managers and ‘staff in care-related but not care providing roles’.
Regulated professions, including social workers, occupational therapists, registered nurses, allied health professionals, ‘safeguarding and reviewing officers’ and nursing associates.
Direct care, including senior care workers, care workers, community support and outreach workers (referred to as ‘support and outreach workers’ throughout this report), support workers and other care providing job roles.
Other roles, including administrative or office staff who are not providing care, ancillary staff who are not providing care, activities worker or co-ordinators, care co-ordinators, learning and development leads, assessment officers, IT and data roles, and other job roles which are not care-providing.
Explore key variables that are collected in the ASC-WDS about each establishment and the staff working there. This allows us to define and describe the adult social care sector and its workforce. Variables are divided into the sections of ‘The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England’ report where analysis of each of these is shown.
Size and Structure
Filled posts, this refers to any post (or job) employed by an adult social care organisation. A person may have more than one job, therefore the number of filled posts can be higher than the number of people working in the sector.
Full-time equivalent (FTE) filled posts, this refers to the number of filled posts taking into account the number of hours worked by an individual. One FTE filled post is equivalent to working 37 hours a week.
Total posts, this refers to the total number of posts in the workforce. This is the sum of filled posts (filled by a person) and vacant posts (posts waiting to be filled).
Vacant posts, are the number of posts at an establishment that are not currently filled by a person and are being actively recruited to. This may be to replace a leaver, or to expand the workforce.
Employees, this refers to those workers who are classed as directly employed, that is employed on a permanent or temporary contract. Those workers employed via agency, bank or pool, or other contract types are classed as indirectly employed and therefore are not included as employees.
Employment status, refers to the contract type of an individual worker. Employers are asked to select one of the following contract types for each worker: permanent, temporary, agency staff, bank/pool staff or ‘other’ contract type.
Hours worked, this refers to the hours worked by an individual worker (either as contracted or average hours). Hours can be linked to contract type, so we ask this question in different ways to account for this.
Zero-hours contracts, some staff in adult social care are employed on a zero-hours contract. The ASC-WDS asks a separate question about this contract type, it is distinct from a worker’s employment status. For example, a member of staff can be employed permanently and have a zero-hours contract.
Experience in sector and role, this refers to the number of years a person has been working in their current role, or the adult social care sector overall.
Leavers and turnover rate, this is the rate of leavers in the last 12 months within adult social care. The turnover rate is calculated at establishment level by dividing the number of leavers in the last 12 months by the number of directly employed staff.
Sickness, this refers to the number of sickness days taken by a worker in the last 12 months. No further information is asked, including reason for sickness. Staff can be flagged in the ASC-WDS as being on maternity leave by their employer, to distinguish this from sickness.
Source of recruitment, this refers to the sector where the worker was previously employed.
Starters rate, this is the rate of new starters in the last 12 months within the adult social care sector. The starters rate is calculated at establishment level by dividing the number of the starters in the last 12 months by the number of directly employed staff.
Vacancy rate, this is the rate of vacant posts within adult social care. The vacancy rate is calculated by dividing vacant posts by the sum of directly employed staff and vacant posts.
All variables in the ASC-WDS are completed by the employer on behalf of their staff. It should be noted that responses may differ if the worker entered their own information.
Age, this refers to the age of the worker and is calculated from their date of birth.
Country of birth, this refers to the country where the worker was born. There are 194 options within the ASC-WDS which are then grouped into 3 categories: ‘born in the UK’, ‘born in an EU country’ and ‘born in a non-EU country’.
Disability, this refers to a worker’s disability status. Options available to answer this question are ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘not disclosed’.
Ethnicity, this refers to a worker’s ethnicity. There are 18 options to choose from in the ASC-WDS which are then grouped into 5 categories: ‘white’, ‘mixed or multiple ethnic groups’, ‘Asian or Asian British’, ‘Black, African, Caribbean or Black British’, and ‘other’.
Gender, this refers to the gender identity of the worker. Options available to answer this question are ‘female, ‘male’ and ‘other’.
Nationality, this refers to the nationality of a worker. There are 194 options within the ASC-WDS which are then grouped into 3 categories: British, EU and Non-EU.
Full-time equivalent (FTE) annual pay, refers to a worker’s full-time equivalent annual salary. This can be directly entered by the employer or calculated from the worker’s hourly pay rate based on a 37-hour week.
Hourly pay, refers to a worker’s hourly rate of pay. This can be directly entered into the ASC-WDS by an employer or calculated by dividing the worker’s salary by their contracted hours.
Nominal pay, refers to trended information that shows actual pay rates as they were at the time. There has been no adjustment made for inflation.
Real term pay, refers to trended information that shows adjusted pay rates, taking inflation into account.
Care Certificate (Level 2 qualification), this refers to the Care Certificate qualification that launched in June 2024. This is different to the Care Certificate standards, which are an induction training programme.
Care Certificate standards, this refers to the induction programme for workers in direct care roles known as the ‘Care Certificate standards’. This training programme includes 15 minimum standards that should be completed before a worker can have their Care Certificate standards status recorded as ‘completed’ in the ASC-WDS.
Relevant adult social care qualification, this refers to any qualification that has been flagged by the employer as relevant to adult social care.
Training categories, this refers to the training that workers have undertaken as part of their current role. There are 47 training category options in the ASC-WDS.