According to our most recent data, England’s population aged 65 and above is projected to grow from 10.5 million to 14.5 million between 2020 and 2040. This means that by 2040 the sector may need 540,000 extra new posts (29% growth) to service the increasing need for care services.
This forecast highlights the urgent requirement to build a bigger and increasingly knowledgeable and capable workforce. Ensuring that social care staff are equipped with the necessary skills is essential if we are to support increasingly strained care infrastructure. Now more than ever, organisations must prioritise the training and development of their employees to ensure they are prepared for the challenges ahead.
It is not just skills and knowledge that matter though, as the data also shows a clear link between training opportunities and employee retention. Our data shows that care workers who received more training were significantly more likely to stay in their roles. For instance, care workers with just one instance of recorded training had a turnover rate of 31.5%, but for those with more than 30 instances of training, the turnover rate dropped by 9.3 percentage points to 22.2%. Overall, care workers who had received training had an average turnover rate of 28%, which is 7.4 percentage points lower than those who hadn’t received any training (35.4%).
We have made some huge strides in this space in recent months. The Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care, which launched in July 2024, aims to support the sector by ensuring we have enough of the right people with the right skills to provide the best possible care. It dedicates an entire section to training and development of staff, with specific recommendations for changes and priorities into the future.
One of the strategy’s priorities is the continued development of the Care Workforce Pathway, which is helping to create clear routes for progression within the sector. Commissioned by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), the pathway provides structure and growth opportunities by mapping specific qualifications to role categories in social care, making it easy to understand what qualifications will help those at every level progress. There are new role categories and qualifications being developed continuously to support this.
An example of this in action is the recently launched Level 2 Adult Social Care Qualification. Currently, 54% of direct care workers do not hold a Level 2 qualification or above. The introduction of this qualification is crucial in addressing this gap by equipping care staff with the most up-to-date knowledge and skills they need to succeed in their roles.
As we move into 2025, we must recognise that investing in learning and development will be essential for meeting the needs of our growing population and ensuring that the social care workforce is well prepared, motivated and ready to deliver high-quality care. However, we can also take some comfort in the fact that there have never been so many resources available, many of them for free, to help us understand how we can progress our staff.
Visit Skills for Care’s Learning and development matters landing page to find out more about developing your staff.
Oonagh Smyth is Chief Executive Officer at Skills for Care. Email: [email protected] X: @skillsforcare