Social work education

Explore data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) that describes students enrolling onto social work courses and see how these students progress into joining the adult social care workforce as social workers.   

  • Published: March 2026 (latest data from 2024/25)  

  • Last updated: March 2026 

  • Next update due: March 2027 (data from 2025/26)  

Please note: This report contains new data from 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25. 

Download full report 


Explore the data

Use the tabs to explore enrolments and qualifiers of social worker courses in England. 

The information (i) button provides useful notes about the data, while the Download PowerPoint button lets you save a screenshot of the visualisation for use in your own presentations. Each tab also includes a glossary for reference. 

Beneath the visualisation, you’ll find links to learn more about social workers in our other reports and visualisations. 

 

Read the report

PDF - 908 Kb

Read the full report for a comprehensive analysis of enrolments and qualifiers of social worker courses in England. You can also learn about how these qualifiers move into new social worker roles in adult social care. 

Learn more about adult social care

Methodology for creating workforce estimates

How the Workforce Intelligence team estimates the size, structure and characteristics of the adult social care workforce in England.  

 

Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs) 

Explore findings from the annual Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) Leads survey, including findings about social workers and AMHP qualified social workers from local authorities collected via the Adult Social Care Workforce Dataset (ASC-WDS).  

The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England 

Annual report and data, providing a national picture of the adult social care workforce in England, including trends in recruitment, diversity and pay.  

Headline social worker information 

Annual report and data, providing a detailed analysis of social workers employed by local authorities in England working in adult social care.  

Want to find out more about how to commission us?  

Whether you need bespoke analysis for your organisation, custom data for your product or an expert partner for your bid, we can help. 

Find out more about commissioning our services