Responding to the publication of the Skills for Care ‘State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce in England’ report 2026, Melanie Weatherley MBE, Co-Chair of the Care Association Alliance, says:
“We welcome this report. Skills for Care‘s data is the best evidence base the sector has, and any serious workforce plan has to start here.
“Vacancies at 6.2% and turnover at its lowest recorded level are real progress, earned by providers and their staff. The sector’s £81.8 billion annual contribution to the economy confirms what we have always argued: this is economic infrastructure, not a cost to be managed.
“The harder picture is underneath. A care worker with five years’ experience earns around 12p an hour more than someone who started last week. That is not career progression. It tells skilled people their experience has no value, and they leave.
“The number of British workers has fallen by 130,000 since 2020/21, international recruitment has halved since the visa route closed, and young people make up just 7% of the workforce with the highest turnover of any age group at 35.5%. The domestic pipeline is not replacing what has been lost.
“The report also finds that an estimated 46% of direct care workers carry out delegated healthcare tasks, from catheter care to wound management, without additional recognition or pay. The boundary between health and care work has moved. Pay, training and accountability need to move with it.
“The Care Association Alliance will set out in detail how to take this forward. Our paper, due to be published tomorrow, proposes a Fair Pay Agreement tied to the Care Workforce Pathway, a national framework for delegated healthcare, and a care-sector route within the Youth Guarantee to reach the nearly one million young people currently out of work or education. The evidence in this report strengthens the case for acting on those proposals now.”
