Over 20 years experience of training in the care sector
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Over 20 years experience of training in the care sector
Call us on
020 3129 5667
Skills for Care published its latest State of the adult social care sector and workforce in England report on 14 October 2026, bringing together the latest evidence on recruitment, retention, pay, development and the changing shape of the workforce.
For registered managers and area directors, the most useful message is not simply that recruitment remains difficult. The new analysis gives a clearer picture of the workforce conditions associated with keeping good care workers, supporting quality and building more sustainable services.
England’s adult social care workforce grew for a fourth consecutive year in 2025/26. The vacancy rate fell to 6.2% – its lowest level in a decade, representing around 96,000 vacancies on an average day. However, workforce growth slowed to 1.4%, its weakest increase for four years.
In the independent-sector analysis, turnover was 15.3% among care workers with all five positive employment factors, compared with 34.3% among those with none. The factors were pay at or above the local authority area average, guaranteed hours, recorded training, a relevant social care qualification and full-time work. This is a comparison between groups, not a measured reduction following an intervention.
These figures show associations rather than proving that any single factor causes someone to stay.
Registered managers cannot always control commissioning rates, salary budgets or contractual arrangements. They can, however, influence:
✅ The quality of induction.
✅ Supervision and support.
✅ Communication and recognition.
✅ Rota management and consistency.
✅ Access to learning and development.
✅ The culture experienced by staff every day.
Care worker turnover was 28.3% in establishments where the registered manager had been in the role for less than a year, compared with 20.6% where the manager had 20 or more years in the role. This independent-sector comparison concerns time in the current role, not simply total management experience.
Providers can support managers through better induction, meaningful supervision, peer support, leadership development and workloads that allow them to lead rather than simply react to the next operational problem.
The 2026 findings also identify associations between stronger CQC ratings and workforce factors including higher staffing ratios and pay, greater training opportunities, increased uptake of the Care Certificate standards and lower vacancy rates.
This should not be interpreted as a checklist that guarantees a better CQC rating. Quality is much more complex.
Workforce development is part of service quality, not simply a compliance function.
A training matrix showing 100% completion is useful. It tells a manager whether required learning has been completed.
What it cannot demonstrate on its own is whether workers are confident, competent or applying that learning in practice.
Are our staff becoming more capable because of the learning we provide?
That means looking beyond mandatory refresher courses and considering supervision, reflective discussion, workplace observation, competency assessment where appropriate and development linked to people’s roles.
The report also highlights a potential development challenge. Only 37% of care workers and support workers hold a qualification at Level 2 or above, compared with 48% in 2018/19.
The report also estimates that 59% of CQC-regulated establishments had non-nursing staff carrying out delegated healthcare activities. This is an establishment-level estimate, not the proportion of all individual care workers carrying out such activities.
This does not mean every care worker needs a formal qualification. Nor does completing an eLearning course prove practical competence for a delegated clinical task.
It does mean providers should ask whether the learning available to workers genuinely matches the complexity of the work they are expected to undertake.
The Care Workforce Pathway gives providers an opportunity to make development more structured and to help workers understand how their skills and careers can progress.
Managers should therefore consider whether staff know what development opportunities exist, whether supervision includes meaningful career conversations and whether learning plans focus on growth as well as compliance.
People under 25 account for only around 7% of the adult social care workforce, compared with approximately 12% of England’s economically active population. Turnover among younger care workers is also particularly high, at around 35.5%.
Managers should look closely at what a new worker experiences during their first few months: how they are welcomed, whether training prepares them for the reality of the role, whether they know who to ask for help and whether good practice is recognised.
National figures become most useful when providers compare them with their own workforce data.
Registered managers should understand their turnover rate, vacancies, new-starter retention, supervision completion and learning activity.
Area directors can go further by comparing individual services.
If one service consistently retains workers better than another, investigate why.
The difference may be leadership behaviour, induction, rota stability, communication, supervision or access to development.
Some of the best answers to workforce retention may already exist inside your organisation.
For a practical discussion of these findings, watch our webinar from 23 October 2026 with Mark Thomson, CareTutor’s Head of Learning and Development. Mark explores what the workforce evidence means for care leaders, including supporting new starters, connecting supervision with development and choosing an action to review in your own service.
Watch What the Latest Skills for Care Workforce Findings Mean for Care Leaders
Development is one part of a wider retention strategy, alongside fair employment conditions, supervision, and support.
CareTutor provides eLearning for health and social care, helping providers support induction, refresh core knowledge and develop specialist understanding. Pathway LMS brings learning records together through a traffic-light training matrix, reporting and configurable refresher periods. Managers can identify outstanding learning and use supervision to explore where staff need further support.
For leadership development, explore Lead to Succeed, Well-Led and Leading Change, Improving Care. Contact CareTutor to discuss your team’s learning needs or arrange a Pathway LMS demonstration.
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