Adult social care vacancy rates in England
This week’s infographic looks at the vacancy rate for adult social care in England.
As per publicly available data, the adult social care vacancy is more than twice as high as that of the wider economy.
The turnover rate is, meanwhile, also relatively high, but has been decreasing lately.
The Chief Executive of Skills for Care, Professor Oonagh Smyth, commented in 2024 that the improvements seen in 2023/24 were largely driven by international recruitment, “masking ongoing challenges when it comes to domestic recruitment”, as tens of thousands of domestic recruits have left the sector.
The UK Government’s immigration white paper presented to Parliament on 12 May 2025, announced the end of overseas recruitment for care workers through the closure of the social care visa route to new applicants. Such a drastic policy shift may cause issues in sourcing affordable labour for care providers.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Anjana Madangarli or call 0207 183 3779.
