New report finds small recovery in adult care staffing

England’s adult care workforce grew and staff vacancies fell last year, according to Skills for Care’s annual report on the sector.

The report covered the year from April 2022 to March 2023, which saw some improvements in workforce capacity largely driven by an increase in international recruitment, with more posts being filled, fewer vacancies and less turnover.

The report also highlighted ongoing trends for the sector, including 390,000 people leaving their jobs – with around a third of them leaving the sector altogether.

Among the report’s key findings:

• The workforce grew by 1% between April 2022 and March 2023 after shrinking for the first time on record the previous year
• The vacancy rate fell to 9.9% – around 152,000 vacancies on any given day – from 10.6% the previous year
• Monthly tracking since March suggests that the vacancy rate has continued to fall, and in August was 8.4% among independent sector care providers. In independent sector care homes, the vacancy rate fell to 5.1% in August, which was below pre-pandemic levels (5.5% in 2019/20)
• The turnover rate across the sector was 28.3% in 2022/23 – down slightly from 28.9% the previous year. This means around 390,000 people left their jobs. Around a third of them left the sector altogether
• On average, care workers with five years’ (or more) experience in the sector were paid just six pence (0.6%) more per hour than care workers with less than one year of experience
• Only 8% of the workforce was aged under 25 – compared with 12% of the economically active population
• The number of registered nurse filled posts increased by 2% in 2022/23 to 33,000
• Between March 2022 and March 2023, an estimated 70,000 people arrived in the UK and started direct care providing roles in the independent sector
• Projections show 25% more posts (440,000) will be needed by 2035 if the number of adult social care posts grows proportionally to the projected number of people aged 65 and over in the population

The report also identified five factors that are key to retaining staff:

• Being paid more than the minimum wage
• Not being on a zero-hours contract
• Being able to work full-time
• Being able to access training
• Having a relevant qualification

Where none of these factors apply, care workers are more than twice as likely to leave their jobs as when all five factors apply – a 48.7% turnover rate compared with 20.6%.

Skills for Care CEO, Oonagh Smyth, said: ‘It’s good to see green shoots for the sector and workforce in our latest report – which is testament to the hard work that’s gone into tackling the recruitment and retention challenges we face. But the challenges haven’t gone away.

‘In particular, the fact that 390,000 people left their jobs in 2022/23 and around a third of them left the sector altogether shows that we have a leaky bucket that we urgently need to repair. We can’t simply recruit our way out of our retention challenges. So, we need a comprehensive workforce strategy to ensure we can both attract and keep enough people with the right skills to support everyone who draws on care and support – and all of us who will draw on care and support in the future.

‘We’ll be using the expertise, data, insights and relationships we have developed over the last 20 years to develop that strategy. Given the rich diversity of the sector, any strategy will only be successful if it’s created by the many organisations and people that have a stake in the future of social care, so we’ll be working with a wide range of partners who are willing to embrace and drive the changes we need.’