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Improving terms and conditions for the social care workforce in Wales 2025

Compiled by Dr Grace Krause, edited by Dr Kat Deerfield, Dr Rhian Reynolds and Dr Flossie Caerwynt

In this briefing, we’ve gathered findings from our research on terms and conditions in the social care workforce in Wales. We’ve grouped our findings into the following themes: 

  • job satisfaction
  • pay and reimbursement
  • types of contract
  • international workers
  • other terms and conditions.

Following a discussion of these findings, we outline what’s being done to improve working conditions for the social care workforce in Wales. 

The social care workforce in numbers

The social care sector in Wales employs an estimated 82,875 people across the country. This is a 0.7 per cent increase compared to last year (Social Care Wales, 2025b). About 65,000 people are registered with Social Care Wales. 

In 2025, we carried out our third survey of the workforce to find out how people felt about working in social care. We got responses from 3,546 care workers, 492 social care managers, 750 social workers, and 293 people who reported having other roles. In total, 5,707 people responded to our survey. We also held two focus groups and carried out 21 individual interviews to find out more about the experience of social care workers.

While some of the things we asked the workforce were the same as last year (Krause et al., 2025a, Krause et al., 2025b) there were also some significant differences. As a result, there are things we wrote about in last year’s briefing on improving terms and conditions that are not included this time. 

These are some of the important things we learned from those who responded to our survey (Social Care Wales, 2025a):

  • 68.86 per cent were very or fairly satisfied with their terms and conditions
  • 10.82 per cent were either fairly dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their terms and conditions
  • most respondents agreed they could meet the needs of the people who accessed care and support (77.77 per cent)
  • 11.74 per cent were employed on a zero hours contract with 14.71 per cent of care workers on zero hours contracts
  • 64.11 per cent of people who said they had zero hours contracts said they’d prefer to be on a fixed or regular hours contract
  • 41.96 per cent were dissatisfied with their pay, with 37.88 per cent satisfied
  • 45.86 per cent said they were ‘living comfortably’ or ‘doing alright’ financially, 22.02 per cent said they were finding it quite or very difficult to get by.

Why it’s important to improve terms and conditions

Good terms and conditions are important for workers’ well-being. Poor working conditions can also have an impact on retention rates and on attraction and recruitment to the sector. This can have a knock-on effect on the delivery of care and support.

When we asked social care workers if they were happy with their terms and conditions, 68.86 per cent of all respondents said they were satisfied overall. There was some variation across roles, with 66.30 per cent of care workers saying they were satisfied with their terms and conditions. This rose to 71.22 per cent for social workers and 80.16 per cent for managers (Social Care Wales, 2025a).

From our workforce survey, we know that 50.11 per cent of registered social care workers started working in the sector because they wanted a job that would make a difference to people’s lives. The second most common answer, with 11.83 per cent, was that they thought it would be a job they’d enjoy (Social Care Wales, 2025a). 

Many respondents reported joining the sector because they wanted to make a difference to people's lives and others said they felt it was a job they'd enjoy

These numbers are much lower this year than they were last year. This is because this year, we only asked social care workers to name the most important reason they started working in the sector. In the 2024 survey, we asked them to name all of the reasons they joined the workforce. When we asked the question that way, 69 per cent said they wanted a job that would make difference to people’s lives and 45 per cent said they felt it would be a job they’d enjoy (Social Care Wales, 2024). 

In both cases, the top two answers are the same. This shows that the social care workforce in Wales is highly motivated and that workers want to provide the best possible care to the people they support. 

However, we know from other research that working conditions in the sector can make it difficult for social care workers to provide the best possible care to the people they support. In our survey, 19.89 per cent of respondents said they were considering leaving the social care sector (Social Care Wales, 2025a). The Fair Work Wales report, produced by the Fair Work Commission in 2019, recommends looking at working conditions in the social care sector. It describes the sector as a ‘core industry that contributes to individual and social well-being’. The report also notes that, despite working in a sector of great importance, the social care workforce often struggles with insecurity and poor working conditions.

A Senedd research paper published in 2022 describes the social care workforce in Wales as ‘in crisis’ (James, 2022). Recruitment and retention issues are the main reasons for this (James, 2022). The sector is understaffed when compared to other sectors in the Welsh economy. In 2024, there were around 5,346 vacancies in social care across Wales (Social Care Wales, 2025b).

We've grouped our findings on terms and conditions into different themes so that we can explore the data in more detail.

Job satisfaction

Our 2025 workforce survey asked social care workers what they enjoyed about working in social care. We also asked what they thought could be done to make working in the sector better. 

What motivates people to work in social care

When we asked people in the focus groups and interviews about what motivated them to work in social care, two main themes emerged. Firstly, respondents valued their ability to make a difference to people’s lives and found it personally rewarding (Social Care Wales, 2025a): 

“It’s my passion to touch lives, to assist people. They're vulnerable people, and that's what I love doing. So the best way I can reach out to community is to join social care.” - Rhys, support worker

“I find it rewarding working with vulnerable people. I just feel happy when I see them, that they are receiving services and making sure they are safe in their homes.” - Emily, domiciliary care worker

People also said that they felt like working in social care was a natural progression for them based on their previous roles or experiences. For example, several participants noted caring for family members, and how this had encouraged them to look for work in social care:

“I've got a grandmother. She's over 100 years old. So I usually go around […] and spend my spare time with her […] I think I got used to the pattern of being there for the elderly. I love to be around them. I love to spend time with them. I listen to them […] it gives me joy.” 

Anna, healthcare assistant

Others progressed into social care work after working in related roles:

“I've worked with people with learning disabilities. I've also worked with people with mental health conditions; I've worked with the elderly people with dementia, people with physical difficulties, and I've worked with care leavers.. So, I've had, a lot of experience over the years … which naturally led me to care work.” 

Lyla, support worker

Meeting people’s needs and feeling supported

People working across the social care workforce told us that they take great satisfaction in their work. However, the survey also showed that they don’t always feel they have the capacity to do their job as well as they’d like. 

Most workers responding to our workforce survey (77.77 per cent) agreed that they could meet the needs of the people they cared for. This number was lowest for social workers, of whom only 62.47 per cent agreed with the statements. 

More than half, 58.5 per cent, said they had enough time to do their job well. This number was lowest for social care managers (47.86 per cent) and social workers (43.49 per cent).

The survey also showed that social care workers don’t always feel like they get enough support for their well-being in work. When asked about stress, only 43.52 per cent of workers felt there was enough support in place. We’ve produced a separate briefing for this workforce insight series that discusses workforce well-being in more detail, available here: Supporting the well-being of the social care workforce in Wales 2025.

Pay and reimbursement

Pay across the social care workforce varies by type of role and by employer. We don’t have specific numbers for Wales, but we know from UK-wide data that in April 2025, the average annual full-time income of residential, day and domiciliary care managers and proprietors was £45,881, with an average hourly rate of £22.73. Social services managers and directors had an average annual full-time income of £50,235 a year, and had an average hourly wage of £27.48, while social workers averaged £44,898 per year and £23.45 per hour on average. Residential, day and domiciliary care managers and proprietors worked an average of 37.6 hours a week, compared to 33.9 hours on average for social services managers and directors and 34.3 hours for social workers (Office for National Statistics, 2025).

By comparison, care workers and home care workers had an average annual full-time income of £27,577 or an average hourly wage of £14.54. Senior care workers had an average annual full-time income of £29,804 and an average hourly income of £14.91. Care workers worked an average of 31.3 hours a week and senior care workers worked an average of 37.2 hours a week (Office for National Statistics, 2025). 

These figures fall below estimates from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showing that a single person in 2025 needed to earn £30,500 a year to afford a decent standard of living (Stone and Padley, 2025). A couple with two children needed to make a combined average salary of around £74,000 a year (Stone and Padley, 2025).

Overall, 45.86 per cent of people working in social care felt they were either ‘doing alright’ financially or ‘living comfortably’. When we consider the data by workforce type, care workers stand out as being particularly affected by financial pressures. Only 41.99 per cent of care workers said they were doing alright financially or living comfortably, compared to 55.65 and 51.36 per cent of managers and social workers respectively. Nearly a quarter, 24.1 per cent, of care workers said they were finding it quite or very difficult to manage financially, compared to 21.6 per cent of social workers and 13.76 per cent of social care managers (Social Care Wales, 2025a). 

Across the workforce, care workers were the group that reported feeling most under pressure financially, with some saying they were finding it quite or very difficult to manage financially

The levels of satisfaction with pay varied across the different parts of the workforce. Overall, 37.88 per cent of the social care workforce said they were very or fairly satisfied with their level of pay and 41.96 per cent were very or fairly dissatisfied with their level of pay. 

For care workers this was lower, with 34.59 per cent either fairly or very satisfied with their pay. And 45.45 per cent of them saying they were fairly or very dissatisfied. Among social workers, 42.07 per cent reported being fairly or very satisfied with their pay and 38.93 per cent reported being fairly or very dissatisfied. For social care managers this was slightly higher, with 47.43 fairly or very satisfied with their current rate of pay, and 31.62 per cent responding that they were dissatisfied (Social Care Wales, 2025a).

Social care workers named low pay as a major reason for high staff turnover (Social Care Wales, 2025a):

“Retention [is] more of a challenge, long hours, poor pay, supporting people with very complex health care needs, more of a nursing role, huge responsibilities and accountability with little support from health or experienced people in a supervisory [position]”  - Unknown job role

“Low pay for what’s required of you. I used to work in Starbucks and was paid more per hour for less responsibility. I do this job for the love of it, the financial side is difficult.” - Unknown job role

Respondents saw better pay as a key way to improve recruitment and retention in social care:

“The only way you're [going to] get more staff, and more staff staying, is the pay. We're on minimum wage. We see doctors, nurses, complaining about their rates of pay and what they have to do, and while we are sympathetic to that, we also see that we're doing far more than them.” 

Rhian, support worker

This also included better sick pay:

“I wish we did get paid more [...] but if the wages stayed the same, but we had sick pay, I think it would make it a little bit better.”  

Katrina, support worker

Types of contracts

Our workforce data collection shows 87.2 per cent of people working for commissioned services are on permanent contracts. Local authorities have 76.6 per cent of their workers on permanent contracts (Social Care Wales, 2025b). 

In our survey, 66.69 per cent of respondents said they were on full-time contracts, with 17.37 per cent on part-time contracts and 10.83 per cent on flexible hour contracts (Social Care Wales 2025a). 

Use of zero hours contracts in social care

In the 2025 workforce survey we asked specifically about zero hours contracts. These are contracts of employment without any guaranteed hours of work (Ravalier et al., 2019). In our survey, 11.74 per cent of respondents said they had a zero hours contract. Care workers, at 14.71 per cent, were much more likely to have this type of contract. This was compared to 6.34 per cent of social workers and 1.69 per cent of managers.

Our workforce data (Social Care Wales, 2025b) shows a similar picture. The care worker role has the most social care workers on zero hours contracts, with 2,313 (9.7 per cent) of the workers on zero hours contracts. Domiciliary care from commissioned services has the highest proportion of its workers on zero hours contracts (25.9 per cent). Of the people who said they had a zero hours contract, only 35.89 per cent said they would choose to work on this kind of contract. This suggests that most individuals don’t want this arrangement (Social Care Wales, 2025a).

The survey also asked people an open-ended question about how zero hours contracts affected them. People reported that not knowing their working hours made it hard to pay their bills and plan for the future. They said they struggled with not knowing how much they’d be paid and were worried about their financial security. Some respondents said that zero hours contracts gave them flexibility to pick shifts that suited them or helped them work around their child care arrangements. But others pointed out that the flexibility of their contract didn’t always work in their favour. They felt forced to accept whatever hours were on offer and worried they could lose shifts at any given time. 

Many people on zero hours contracts said they'd prefer a different arrangement. They described how this type of contract made it difficult to plan and manage finances and said they felt pressure to accept whatever hours were on offer

International workers

Ten people who participated in the focus groups or interviews were international staff from outside the UK. Some of these workers were on visas that required sponsorship from an employer. Some international social care workers spoke about uncertainty around sponsorship, saying that a lack of stability and timely visa support created stress and left employers at risk of losing skilled and passionate staff.

“Most of us may need a sponsor to keep the job going. […] Some that are on probation in a particular place […] have to go and look to get another source of extending the visa for a while before the expiration date for their probation […] I just think if Social Care Wales can implement a rule [to] give five years, […] to keep stability of staff. You know, when you say […] after one year the staff can go […] [it] affect[s] the organisation, also affect[s] the service users.” 

Rhys, support worker

Some international workers reported that their immigration status made them vulnerable to unfair treatment, including threats to their visas if they questioned working conditions or challenged poor practices.

“Then the other challenges I faced: they give me like 15 minutes for a client with Parkinsons. [...] I had to call […] 999 to come and pick up the client. So, sometimes the ambulance will come maybe later, approximately one hour and more. Then we'll be facing a challenge whereby they will be cancelling the following calls. Then you [don’t get] paid. But we used to get paid for that. If you ask them, just because we are sponsored workers from abroad, they will [be] threatening us [with] cancelling the sponsorship.” 

Tanya, domiciliary care worker

Workers who are sponsored by an employer can face particular types of exploitation and abuse. Unison (2025) carried out a survey of 3000 people who had come to the UK to work in the social care sector. Nearly half of the respondents, 46 per cent, reported experiencing racism at work. They also reported issues such as unsuitable living conditions in company accommodation and being paid late or having pay deducted without good reason (Unison, 2025).

Other terms and conditions

In the survey, people told us about several other topics related to employment terms and conditions, including employment benefits like pensions, leave and family friendly policies. They also told us about their awareness of employment rights and trade union membership.

Pensions

Most people, across all groups, said they had access to a workplace or company pension scheme. Among those who said they received a contribution from their employer as part of a pension scheme were 60.27 per cent of care workers, 72.13 per cent of social workers, and 81.5 per cent of social care managers (Social Care Wales, 2025a).

Leave 

The majority of social care managers received 28 days’ paid holiday (92.48 per cent), compared with 74.93 per cent of care workers and 76.4 per cent of social workers (Social Care Wales, 2025a).

Only 30.6 per cent of care workers received sick pay beyond statutory sick pay (Social Care Wales, 2025a). Statutory sick pay is the minimum amount of sick pay that employers have to pay. It’s currently set at £118.75 a week (UK Government, 2025). Social workers and social care managers were somewhat more likely to receive sick pay, 60.67 per cent and 52.24 per cent respectively (Social Care Wales, 2025a). 

Family-friendly policies 

In the survey, 48.4 per cent of social workers and 48.17 per cent of social care managers said they had access to family-friendly policies such as flexible working, carers’ leave, and enhanced parental leave. Care workers were much less likely (14.07 per cent) to have access to family-friendly policies (Social Care Wales, 2025a).

 

In our survey, most people said they had access to a company pension and understood their employment rights but fewer than half said they had access to family-friendly policies and adequate travel expenses

Travel expenses

We asked people if they received enough money to cover their work related travel expenses. Among care workers, only 11.59 per cent said they received enough money to cover work related travel expenses. The figure was higher for care managers, 37.6 per cent, and social workers, 33.6 per cent. 

Awareness of employment rights

We asked people to tell us about their awareness of employment rights. Among care workers, 79.82 per cent said they were aware of their rights. This was higher for social workers (82.22 per cent) and managers (94.83 per cent). Only 5.67 per cent of care workers and 5.56 per cent of social workers said they were not aware of their rights and for managers this was down to just 1.24 per cent. 

Trade union membership

Our workforce survey showed a considerable variation in trade union membership across respondents in different parts of the workforce. Overall, 35.22 per cent of social care workers told us they were members of a trade union. Social workers were more likely to say they belonged to a trade union (49.12 per cent) than other groups. Just 40.78 per cent of social care managers and 31.33 per cent of care workers said they were union members (Social Care Wales, 2025a).

What’s happening and what’s planned for improving terms and conditions

Work has already begun on improving terms and conditions for the social care workforce in Wales. This includes the work of the Social Care Fair Work Forum, our workforce strategy for health and social care, and the establishment of an expert group to advise on the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru’s shared ambition for a national care and support service.

Social Care Fair Work Forum

There are signs of improvement in pay for people working in social care. The Social Care Fair Work Forum was established in 2020 to explore things like increasing pay and improving working conditions across the sector. The forum involves government, employers, and unions working in social partnership to look at how the definition of fair work should be applied to social care workers in Wales (Welsh Government, 2023). 

In its first two years, forum members worked together to propose applying the real living wage across social care in Wales. As a result, paying social care workers the real living wage was one of the key pledges in the Welsh Government’s Programme for Government (Welsh Government, 2022). As part of this ongoing commitment, local authorities and health boards across Wales received £43 million to provide an uplift to the real living wage for registered workers in care homes and domiciliary care for 2022 to 2023 (Welsh Government, 2023). This additional funding for the real living wage has now been included in the general funding of local authorities. The roll out of the real living wage has been evaluated by the Welsh Government, with its report published in October 2025 (Welsh Government, 2025b). There’s also work underway to regulate pay rates within children’s social work as part of a wider programme around children’s social workers who work for agencies (ADSS Cymru, 2024). 

Throughout 2025 the forum has worked on several projects. One of these is the social care workforce partnership in which trade unions, social care employers and Welsh Government work together on developing best practice models for social care. The forum has also worked on pay and progression, equality and inclusion, employee rights, voice and representation within the social care sector, and an emerging area of international recruitment (Welsh Government, 2024c; 2025c). The forum is also working towards publishing a voluntary framework for pay in direct care roles by early 2026.

Social care workforce delivery plan 2024 to 2027

A Healthier Wales: our workforce strategy for health and social care was launched in 2020 and sets out our aims for the workforce over 10 years. The social care workforce delivery plan 2024 to 2027 builds on the progress made so far and includes actions based on the feedback we heard during our engagement work, consultation and the workforce survey. The plan sets out actions against the seven themes of the workforce strategy. It supports the ambition of having a motivated, engaged and valued workforce with the capacity, competence and confidence to meet the needs of the people of Wales.

It includes actions to support workforce well-being, attraction and recruitment, seamless working models, digital confidence and skills, education and learning, leadership and planning for future social care needs. Seamless working here means that different parts of the social care and health workforce work together closely to support person centred care. It also has three fundamental principles related to all actions, which are Welsh Language, inclusion and well-being.

Our 2024 to 2025 annual report details the progress made against the delivery plan. In 2026, we’ll work with key partners to create the third version of the workforce strategy delivery plan to be published in early 2027. 

The work is now overseen by a multi-agency, cross sector implementation group, that we co-chair with Welsh Government.

National Office for Care and Support

In 2024, the Welsh Government launched the National Office for Care and Support. Its purpose as stated in its 2024 to 2025 mandate is:

To provide a central guiding hand to the sector through driving improvement in the national delivery of social care in Wales to achieve collaboration, better and more equitable outcomes, access, and service user experience (Welsh Government, 2025a).

As part of this, the National Office has responsibility for ‘developing, implementing, and delivering the National Care Service for Wales’ (Welsh Government, 2024a). This will be a national care and support service for children, families, and adults, which would be free at the point of need.

The National Office supports social partnership within the social care sector, through the Social Care Fair Work Forum and the Social Care Workforce Partnership. This support aims to deliver fair work for sector, including fair pay.

The National Office is working to offer central resources for the Welsh social care sector. This includes creating a sustainable learning and support environment, supporting the implementation of national standards, and collecting data and using it to create positive change. The National Office supports the Chief Social Care Officer to provide leadership and to develop and implement good practice and strategy within the sector. This includes championing inclusive practices such as the Welsh Government workforce equality, diversity and inclusion strategy: 2021 to 2026, the Anti-racist Wales action plan: 2022 and the LGBTQ+ action plan for Wales (Welsh Government, 2024b).

Ymlaen

In Ymlaen, our research, innovation and improvement strategy for social care 2024 to 2029, we commit to gathering and making sense of good quality data and research. This will help us improve conditions for people working in social care and improve outcomes for people accessing care and support. 

This means we’ll continue to: 

  • use research and data to identify future opportunities and challenges and explore possible solutions
  • highlight the difficult issues that affect people working in and accessing social care
  • build the strong and compelling reasons to convince others of the need for change
  • connect people to evidence and research happening in Wales, about Wales, and relevant to Wales
  • present and promote the evidence needed to do things differently. 

Carrying out our own research and data collection, and producing briefings like this helps us to meet these commitments.

Workforce-related research used in this series

The workforce insight series reflects on recent workforce-related research that Social Care Wales has carried out and commissioned. This briefing on improving terms and conditions brings together information from recent projects and reports, including: 

  • Social Care Wales: Have your say – 2025 report findings. This reports on the results of a survey open to everyone working in social care in Wales. It includes data on 5,707 workers. It also includes interviews and focus groups. In the text this study is referenced as (Social Care Wales, 2025a).
  • Workforce data collection report, 2024. This reports on data collected from providers about their workforce. It includes data on about 53,000 people working in social care. In the text, this study is referenced as (Social Care Wales, 2025b).
References - click to expand

ADSS Cymru (2024) New All-Wales Pledge Comes into Effect, available at https://www.adss.cymru/en/blog/post/all-wales-pledge-version-2 (accessed: 31 October 2025).

Fair Work Commission (2019) Fair work Wales - Report of the Fair Work Commission, available at https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-05/fair-work-wales.pdf (accessed: 31 October 2025).

James, R. (2022) Social Care: a workforce in crisis?, Senedd Cymru, available at https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/social-care-a-workforce-in-crisis/ (accessed: 31 October 2025).

Krause, G., Deerfield, K. and Reynolds, R. (2025a) Workforce insight series: improving terms and conditions for the social care workforce in Wales 2024, the Insight Collective, Social Care Wales, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/workforce-insight-series/terms-and-conditions-2024 (accessed: 30 October 2025). 

Krause, G., Deerfield, K. and Reynolds, R. (2025b) Workforce insight series: supporting the well-being of the social care workforce in Wales 2024, the Insight Collective, Social Care Wales, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/workforce-insight-series/well-being-2024 (accessed: 30 October 2025).

Office for National Statistics (2025) Earnings and hours worked, occupation by four-digit SOC: ASHE Table 14. 2025 provisional edition of this dataset, available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/occupation4digitsoc2010ashetable14 (accessed: 30 October 2025).

Ravalier, J., Morton, R., Russell, L. and Rei Fidalgo, A. (2019) ‘Zero-hour contracts and stress in UK domiciliary care workers’, Health and Social Care in the Community, 27 (2), pp. 348-355, doi: 10.1111/hsc.12652.

Social Care Wales (2024) Have your say – 2024 report findings, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/reports/have-your-say-workforce-survey-2024-full-report-and-summary-of-findings (accessed: 29 January 2025).

Social Care Wales (2025a) 'Have Your Say' workforce survey 2025: Full report and summary of responses, available at https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/reports/have-your-say-workforce-survey-2025-full-report-and-summary-of-responses (accessed: 26 November, 2025).

Social Care Wales (2025b) Social care workforce report 2024, available at https://socialcare.wales/research-and-data/workforce-reports (accessed: 26 November 2025).

Stone, J. and Padley, M. (2025) A Minimum Income Standard for the United Kingdom in 2025, Joseph Roundtree Foundation, available at https://www.jrf.org.uk/a-minimum-income-standard-for-the-united-kingdom-in-2025 (accessed: 30 October 2025). 

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