Learn about Skills for Care's policy position on pay in adult social care; our vision, the current situation and potential solutions.
What do we want to see?
The 1.59 million people who work in adult social care are vital to our society and our economy. We believe that care workers should be appropriately rewarded - in a way that supports career progression, learning and development and recruitment and retention.
The current situation
Social care roles are among the lowest paid in our economy.
Low levels of hourly pay, combined with a lack of pay progression for experienced care workers, make it harder to attract and keep good people. In December 2024, average hourly pay for care workers was £12, 23% were paid within 10p of the National Living Wage – and people with 5 or more years’ experience were paid, on average, just 4p an hour more than new starters.
We may need up to 540,000 more posts by 2040 if we’re to keep pace with the projected growth in the number of over-65s in the population alone. And that’s on top of the need to fill the vacancies we currently have – with a vacancy rate around 3 times that of the wider economy.
While improving pay won’t solve all the challenges the sector faces, pay has a significant influence on the wider quality of social care roles. We know from our data and insight that it’s one of the things that affects staff turnover – with a 31% turnover rate among care workers paid £1.50 or more above the National Living Wage, compared with 37.8% turnover for people on or below it.
Solutions
A key recommendation in the Workforce Strategy is joined-up, consistent action to improve pay, terms and conditions for care workers over several years. To that end, the Government’s plans under the Employment Rights Bill for a Fair Pay Agreement, arrived at by a new negotiating body, represent a significant step forward.
We believe that improvements in pay need to be part of a wider response to stabilising the workforce and supporting the sector to meet increasing needs.
The care provider market is extremely fragile, so increasing costs in one area has the potential to create issues elsewhere. For example, an increase in the minimum wage for care workers has the potential to squeeze differentials for experienced staff even more – unless minimum pay is considered alongside pay and career progression and is supported by consistent commissioning standards and funding.
On its own, improved pay is vulnerable to competition from other sectors, which can simply increase their own pay in response. But linking improved pay with wider terms and conditions and the Care Workforce Pathway – which can be expanded as necessary – will ensure that adult social care is an attractive career that’s rewarding in every sense.