Tackling recruitment in adult social care – time for a different conversation

The latest data on the adult social care workforce should be a good news story – the workforce is continuing to grow and the vacancy rate is falling. Yet behind this is a more complex picture, with international recruitment still driving improvements and a declining number of British nationals in the workforce. Recent restrictions on overseas care workers however, mean there is an increasing need to understand what can be done to attract more people to a career in social care.

In November 2025, the Department of Health and Social Care commissioned The King’s Fund to review the evidence on factors that influence recruitment to adult social care. The research identified a considerable volume of academic and ‘grey’ literature but it’s the type and focus of the literature that tells us as much about the issues as the evidence itself.  

The literature highlights a range of factors that help to understand recruitment. These can be broken down into factors that influence whether social care is considered as a potential role or career, including public perceptions and understanding of social care roles and their motivation to apply for a job. It also captures routes into social care, how recruitment processes influence the journey of applicants and the barriers that impinge successful recruitment.  

Yet, despite a wealth of insight, the strength of evidence on actions that measurably improve recruitment is lacking. For a sector made up of more than 18,500 organisations and that accounts for £34.5 billion in expenditure, this should raise questions.  

A key challenge is the scope of the literature, which is dominated by surveys and qualitative studies describing the experiences of employers and care professionals. There is a considerable consistency of findings across different papers and methods, giving validity to the issues identified. While there are a few studies based on the adult social care workforce data set, exploring workforce trends and economic modelling of changes in pay, there is a lack studies that evaluate the impact of policies or interventions, making it difficult to identify which factors are likely to have the greatest impact on recruitment and subsequent quality of provision over time.   

A further challenge is that research often approaches the social care workforce as a ubiquitous group. But social care is not one thing. For instance, care work varies from being part of a team in a residential care home or independently visiting multiple people in their homes, to being contracted by an individual as a personal assistant. Furthermore, the focus of that work can vary from ensuring that someone’s basic personal care needs are met, to supporting an individuals’ independence, whether that’s accompanying someone to the shops or attending a football match. The different settings and types of work that make up social care, mean that while there may be common factors influencing recruitment, other factors are likely to have a differential impact depending on what people may want and need from a job. 

This was something that definitely resonated with the three large providers we spoke to as part of this research, each covering care for different populations and in different settings. What was particularly notable from these conversations was the depth of knowledge participants had drawn from the systematic collection of data and insights on the recruitment process, and their application of a strategic approach to recruitment with localised support for managers.  

These conversations indicate that there is more to learn, but the centralised recruitment capacity that enables these ‘corporate’ approaches is financially inaccessible to the small and medium enterprises (employing fewer than 250 staff) that make up 98% of adult social care employers. The fragmentation of social care further precludes the sharing of insights and resources more widely. While the ability to address issues such as pay are heavily influenced by national policy, there remains a question about the extent to which local authorities and providers themselves could shape a market that was better able to balance individual interests with collective action on recruitment to the sector as whole.  

With relative consensus on the issues, it’s time to breakdown what works and for whom. In this, the government has a key role in setting the agenda – from identifying research priorities through National Institute for Health and Care Research Programme for Social Care, to ensuring its own interventions to improve recruitment are independently evaluated and published. But progress is equally contingent on social care providers. To date, provider bodies have made a substantial contribution to capturing the issues impacting on recruitment. Their willingness to engage with independent research and support wider data sharing on what works, will be an important marker of their commitment to generating solutions for the sector.