As the new year approaches, Oonagh Smyth, Chief Executive at Skills for Care reflects on the achievements and learnings for social care in 2025 and what she hopes 2026 will bring for the sector and workforce.
2025 has undoubtedly been an exciting year for the social care sector. We’ve celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England; launched a student nursing placement strategy; further developed the Care Workforce Pathway; seen the consultation open for the Fair Pay Agreement, and called for people working across social care to share their experiences in the Adult Social Care Workforce Survey.
Of course, it’s been another busy year for the 1.5 million people working across adult social care in England, supporting people to live ‘gloriously ordinary lives’.
We know from our recently-published ‘State of the adult social care sector and workforce report’ that the social care sector has continued to grow this year.
The total number of posts in adult social care increased by 2.2% on the previous year, with the number of filled posts increasing by 3.4% while the number of vacancies decreased by 12.4%.
But we still face long-term recruitment and retention challenges as it’s estimated that we’ll need around 470,000 new posts by 2040 to keep up with the projected growth in the population over the age of 65. That’s why supporting, retaining and valuing our social care workforce as well as attracting new people to join the sector remains key.
We know from our data that factors that can positively impact on staff retention include pay and learning and development, which also impact on how valued and supported people feel in their roles.
The Government recently opened its Fair Pay Agreement consultation. This is a positive step towards improving pay for people working across social care to appropriately renumerate the hard work and skill required for these roles.
By making improvements to pay and terms and conditions for the care sector, we can also improve the esteem in which jobs in social care are held by the wider population.
Improvements to pay is one of the recommendations of The Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England, published in 2024.
Since the Strategy’s publication, we’ve seen 50% of the recommendations either completed or in progress and I’m excited to see further developments on these recommendations over the next year and beyond.
Prioritising learning and development for our workforce must also be a top priority in 2026, to support staff satisfaction and retention and ensure our care workforce is equipped to meet growing and changing care demands.
The Care Workforce Pathway is the first universal career structure for adult social care, mapping out routes for progression for people working in care. The Pathway clearly identifies the knowledge, skills, values and behaviours required for a career in care at different roles and at different levels to support learning and development and ensure we have the right people with the right skills working in care.
The Pathway can also help to increase awareness and understanding of what a career in care looks like – not just among the sector itself but for the wider public. This matters because public recognition of the value and skills of care professionals is an influential factor in making people want to work in care.
Looking ahead to the next year for social care, it’s also important to recognise the improvements that must be made in supporting equity, diversity and inclusion for the social care workforce – particularly at a leadership level.
The findings from our latest Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC-WRES) report shows that social care is diverse, but it’s not always inclusive.
Some of the key findings included only 14% of staff from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background were in the higher pay band of £70,000 with people from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background 45% less likely to be in senior manager roles. 12% of staff from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background are in senior management positions, compared to 20% of the overall workforce being from a global majority background.
As we think about supporting, valuing and retaining our social care staff it’s so important that we are actively inclusive in ensuring those efforts support all staff from all backgrounds.
From our SC-WRES work to our Moving Up programme, supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce remains a top resolution for Skills for Care as we move into the new year.
I am proud to be able to continue to support the social care sector and workforce in 2026 and look forward to seeing what the year brings.
