Publication, Part of Personal Social Services: Staff of Social Services Departments
Personal Social Services: Staff of Social Services Departments, England 2020
National statistics
Individual worker characteristics
This section contains detailed information about local authority adult social services staff in 2020 and is derived from data about individual workers collected by the ASC-WDS. Local authorities are required to complete worker level information on at least 90% of their workforce. This equates to 114,100 workers being used to analyse the characteristics of the individuals that carry out the jobs. The topic areas covered are gender, age, ethnicity, pay, sickness days and qualifications. The ASC-WDS collects other data items including training, experience and nationality but these data items were voluntary for local authorities to complete and have not been included in this publication. These variables are analysed in The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England report.
Gender
Where gender was known or recorded, the majority (81.8%) of the adult social services jobs in 2020 were carried out by female workers. These proportions have remained unchanged since 2011. Gender was unknown or not recorded for 1,905 staff in 2020. In 2019 a new category ‘Other’ was introduced to capture those not identifying as male or female. Further details can be found in Table 8 of the reference data.
Figure 3.1 below shows the gender split across each job role group where gender was known / recorded.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 8 in Reference Data Tables
The proportion of male workers was generally highest in managerial and other job roles (21.7% and 23.3% respectively) and lowest in direct care providing job roles (15.2%).
Age
The average age of workers in adult social care departments within local authorities was 47.7
This has remained the case since 2011, and is slightly older than the average in the independent sector of 43.7
In 2020, nearly three quarters of the jobs in adult social care in local authorities (73.9%) were filled by workers aged 40 or over and a third (33.4%) by workers aged 55 or over. Furthermore, very few jobs (2.9%) were filled by workers aged 24 and below.
The mean age of workers in local authority adult social services jobs has remained at 47 years old since 2011. Local authority adult social services workers are older, on average, than their independent sector counterparts where the average was 43.7 (Skills for Care, 2020). This is also higher than the average age of the NHS workforce, which is 42.9. Figure 3.2 shows the age distribution of all workers in adult social services jobs at September 2020.
Proportions do not include records for which no age was recorded.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 11 in Reference Data Tables
The average age differed slightly by job role group, with workers in direct care jobs having the oldest average age of 48.6, closely followed by workers in managerial jobs (48.5 years old). Workers in professional roles were youngest on average (44.9 years old). Please see Table 11 in the Reference Data Tables for further average age breakdown by job role.
When compared to the age bands of the labour market population of people in work, as seen in Figure 3.3, workers in local authority adult social services jobs are much older than those from the labour market population. Half (50.2%) of the local authority workers are aged 50 and over compared to just 32.5% of the labour market. From a workforce planning point of view, workers aged 50 and over could retire within the next ten to fifteen years.
At the younger end of the age bands (18-24 and 25-34) the local authority workforce has lower proportions (2.9% and 13.8% respectively) than the wider labour market population showing that younger people are not taking up adult social care jobs within the local authority.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 11 in Reference Data and ONS labour market population figures - Jul-Sep 2020
Ethnicity
Where ethnicity was known / recorded, the majority (83.7%) of the adult social services jobs within local authorities in 2020 were carried out by White workers, with 16.3% carried out by workers from Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups. There were 18,100 workers who did not have their ethnicity recorded or their ethnicity was not known.
2020 based on 151 councils with ethnicity data recorded.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 13 in Reference Data Tables
When looking at ethnicity of local authority social services workers by job role group, the professional group had the highest amount of BAME workers with 24.3%. The proportion of BAME workers further increased to 26.6% for Social Worker roles which form part of the professional job role group. In comparison, the manager and supervisor job role group had the least amount of BAME workers (11.7%).
2020 based on 151 councils with ethnicity data recorded.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 13 in Reference Data Tables
The proportion of BAME workers in the local authority workforce varied between region, accounting for 52.8% of total workers in London, and just 3.0% of the total workforce in the North East (where ethnicity was known / recorded). In London 32.1% of all ethnicity data were not recorded or not known, and 8.8% of all ethnicity data in North East were not recorded or not known.
In the London region, 40.2% of all the whole population are classified within the BAME ethnic group, whilst more than half (52.8%) of local authority employees in London (adult social care) are within the BAME group.
Generally, the proportion of BAME workers of the wider population within regions is lower than the BAME proportion of those employed within the adult social care workforce of local authorities.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 14 in Reference Data Tables. Population data provided by Nomis (2011 census estimates – Table KS201EW - Ethnic group, https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp)
Ethnicity per 100,000 population
To understand the variation in ethnic groups within the adult social care workforce within the context of the ethnic breakdown of the wider population, these figures have been standardised per 100,000 of the general population.
Although the local authority workforce is predominately White at 83.7%, there are some individual BAME ethnicity groups which have a larger rate per 100,000 population than the White ethnic group. In particular, Black / African / Caribbean / Black British is higher in each of the main job role groups.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 15 in Reference Data Tables. Population Per 100,000 data provided by Nomis (2011 census estimates – Table KS201EW - Ethnic group, https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp)
Pay
The data in this section shows median whole time equivalent (WTE) annual salaries for adult social services jobs. Annual salary data were converted into WTE salaries using 37 hours as the average full-time hours per week per worker. Hourly rate data was also converted into annual WTE salaries.
Please note: Sandwell provided erroneous pay data which they were unable to correct. This will affect the regional pay values in the West Midlands region. NHS Digital have included all submitted records used in this analysis, so please be cautious when using these figures and note there will be a slight variation in figures published by NHS Digital and those published by Skills for Care later in the year.
The chart in Figure 3.8 shows whole time equivalent pay in September 2020 ordered from the highest paid role to the lowest paid role within each job role group. Senior management roles were the highest paid with a median of £78,600 (up £900 or 1.1% since 2019) and ancillary staff were the lowest paid with a median pay of £18,400 (up £100 or 0.8% since 2019). Care workers (who represent 29.7% of all jobs) had the second lowest median pay at just over £19,600 (up £400 or 2.0% since 2019).
Only showing job roles which consist of 100 workers or more.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 16 in Reference Data Tables
Pay in relation to inflation
Table 3.9 ‘cash terms’ and Table 3.10 ‘real terms’ show the change in whole time equivalent pay rates between 2012 and 2020 by job role. Cash terms rates refer to the actual average annual salary received for each year.
Cash terms
In cash terms, all the listed job roles below (those with more than 2,000 worker records) received a cash terms increase of up to 2.5%, between 2019 and 2020. Social worker (up £900) and Occupational Therapists (up £700) roles both received the highest increase in cash terms pay since 2019.
When comparing the changes between 2012 to 2020 all job roles saw a cash terms pay increase. Ancillary staff not care-providing roles who are the lowest paid workers had the biggest percentage increase (22.0% or £3,300), although First Line Manager roles increased by the most in terms of monetary value (£6,200 or 18.0%) between 2012 and 2020.
Table 3.9: Median whole time equivalent annual pay of adult social services jobs in cash terms by year1 and job role2, September 2020
| Job role | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
% change 2019 to 2020 |
% change 2012 to 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct care | |||||||||||
| Senior Care Worker | £22,600 | £23,500 | £23,200 | £22,900 | £22,400 | £22,700 | £23,100 | £23,800 | £23,800 | 0.0% | 5.3% |
| Care Worker | £17,100 | £17,200 | £17,500 | £17,400 | £17,500 | £17,800 | £18,700 | £19,200 | £19,600 | 2.0% | 14.3% |
| Community Support and Outreach Work | £20,900 | £21,100 | £21,700 | £22,200 | £22,100 | £22,700 | £23,100 | £23,800 | £23,800 | 0.0% | 14.3% |
| Manager / Supervisor | |||||||||||
| Middle Management | £50,900 | ||||||||||
| First Line Manager | £34,500 | £35,600 | £35,700 | £36,700 | £36,900 | £38,200 | £39,700 | £40,600 | £40,800 | 0.5% | 18.0% |
| Supervisor | £26,200 | £26,200 | £26,800 | £27,100 | £27,400 | £27,700 | £28,200 | £19,400 | £29,600 | 0.6% | 13.0% |
| Managers and staff in care-related but not care-providing roles | £29,600 | £29,500 | £29,600 | £28,800 | £29,900 | £29,300 | £29,900 | £31,400 | £31,400 | 0.0% | 5.9% |
| Professional | |||||||||||
| Social Worker | £19,100 | £20,200 | £19,200 | £19,700 | £20,500 | £20,700 | £21,100 | £22,000 | £35,800 | 2.5% | 12.6% |
| Occupational Therapist | £30,800 | £31,200 | £32,000 | £32,800 | £33,100 | £33,400 | £34,100 | £34,800 | £35,500 | 2.1% | 15.1% |
| Other | |||||||||||
| Administrative or office staff not care-providing | £19,100 | £20,200 | £19,900 | £19,700 | £20,500 | £20,700 | £21,100 | £22,000 | £22,600 | 2.5% | 18.0% |
| Ancillary staff not care-providing | £15,100 | £15,000 | £15,600 | £15,400 | £15,900 | £16,300 | £17,100 | £18,200 | £18,400 | 0.8% | 22.0% |
| Other non-care-providing job roles | £26,300 | £26,500 | 0.5% |
1Timeline data starts from 2012 when data is based on 152 local authorities with whole time equivalent pay data recorded. 2019 onwards is based on all 151 local authorities.
2Only job roles with 2,000 or more worker records are shown as median pay trends are more vulnerable to skew as a result of small numbers of workers.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 17 in Reference Data Tables
Real terms
Real term changes between 2019 and 2020 (in Table 3.10 below) shows increases in average pay for six of the eleven job roles, when factoring the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate.
In real terms, between 2012 and 2020 again there was a mixed picture with six job roles showing an increase. ‘Senior care worker’ showed the largest decrease, down 6.9% over this period.
Table 3.10: Median whole time equivalent annual pay of adult social services jobs in real terms1 by year2 and job role3, September 2020
| Job role | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
% change 2019 to 2020 |
% change 2012 to 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct care | |||||||||||
| Senior Care Worker | £25,500 | £25,700 | £25,100 | £24,800 | £24,100 | £23,600 | £23,500 | £23,800 | £23,800 | -0.5% | -6.9% |
| Care Worker | £19,200 | £18,800 | £18,900 | £18,800 | £18,800 | £18,500 | £19,000 | £19,200 | £19,600 | 1.4% | 1.1% |
| Community Support and Outreach Work | £23,500 | £23,100 | £23,500 | £24,100 | £23,700 | £23,600 | £23,500 | £23,800 | £23,800 | -0.5% | 1.1% |
| Manager / Supervisor | |||||||||||
| Middle Management | £50,900 | ||||||||||
| First Line Manager | £38,800 | £39,000 | £38,600 | £39,700 | £39,600 | £39,000 | £40,000 | £40,600 | £40,800 | -0.1% | 4.4% |
| Supervisor | £29,400 | £28,700 | £29,000 | £29,400 | £29,400 | £28,800 | £28,700 | £29,400 | £29,600 | 0.1% | -0.1% |
| Managers and staff in care-related but not care-providing roles | £33,300 | £32,300 | £32,000 | £31,200 | £32,000 | £30,600 | £40,400 | £31,400 | £31,400 | -0.5% | -6.4% |
| Professional | |||||||||||
| Social Worker | £35,700 | £35,100 | £34,700 | £35,500 | £35,500 | £34,900 | £34,700 | £34,900 | £35,800 | 1.9% | -0.4% |
| Occupational Therapist | £34,700 | £34,100 | £34,600 | £35,500 | £35,500 | £34,900 | £34,700 | £34,800 | £35,500 | 1.5% | 1.8% |
| Other | |||||||||||
| Administrative or office staff not care-providing | £21,500 | £22,100 | £21,600 | £21,400 | £21,900 | £21,500 | £21,400 | £22,000 | £22,600 | 1.9% | 4.4% |
| Ancillary staff not care-providing | £16,900 | £16,500 | £16,900 | £16,700 | £17,100 | £17,000 | £17,400 | £18,200 | £18,400 | 0.3% | 7.9% |
| Other non-care-providing job roles | £26,300 | £26,500 | 0.0% |
1Cash terms pay was converted into 2020 prices (real terms) using CPI inflation.
2Timeline data starts from 2012 when data is based on 152 local authorities with whole time equivalent pay data recorded. 2019 onwards is based on all 151 local authorities.
3Only job roles with 2,000 or more worker records are shown as median pay trends are more vulnerable to skew as a result of small numbers of workers.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 18 in Reference Data Tables
Sickness
At September 2020, workers in direct care jobs had the highest number of sickness days with an average of 13.2 days and workers in managerial roles had fewer sickness days on average, at 7.8 days.
The mean number of sickness days in the previous 12 months (as at September 2019 and 2020) for directly employed workers in adult social services jobs is shown in Figure 3.11.
Please note: the methodology for how sickness data is calculated changed in 2018, this is now calculated for directly employed staff only (permanent and temporary workers). Previously the methodology used all workers. Previous years data in the reference table 20 has been recalculated using this improved methodology.
Based on 149 local authorities in 2019 and 149 local authorities in 2020 with sickness data recorded.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 19 in Reference Data Tables
The mean number of sickness days for 104,400 directly employed adult social care staff in local authorities is 10.7 days. This equates to just over 1.1 million estimated days lost to sickness every year. Since 2019 the mean number of sickness days has increased by 0.5 days. As this measure is calculated using data in the past 12 months, it spans the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in England. This could be a contributing factor to the increase. Further information on days lost to sickness and other covid related information can be found here.
44.6%
of workers in adult social care departments in local authorities had 0 sickness days in the year
Although the mean number of sickness days for workers in adult social services jobs in 2020 was relatively high (10.7 days), Figure 3.12 shows that it is important to note nearly half of workers (44.6%) had no sickness days and two thirds of workers (66.1%) had four or fewer sickness days in the previous 12 months.
7.6% of workers had over 40 sickness days, and particularly high numbers of sickness days can have an impact on the overall mean. Median numbers of sick days per local authority are available in Table 19 in the reference data tables which accompany this publication.
Based on 149 local authorities with sickness data recorded.
Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 20 in Reference Data Tables
Additional data within ASC-WDS
There is a wealth of additional information collected and submitted by local authorities to Skills for Care via ASC-WDS on a mandatory or voluntary basis, which is not directly presented within this publication. Additional data and information not provided as part of this publication, is available via Skills for Care - https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Workforceintelligence, this also includes voluntary data submitted from across the whole adult social care sector.
Much of this additional information is voluntary and therefore may not be fully representative when looking at the breath of data available, some of this is aggregated to provide users with an understanding of the general picture within this publication; an example of this could be the impact of the EU referendum on the adult social care sector https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data/Workforce-intelligence/publications/Topics/Workforce-nationality.aspx
Last edited: 21 June 2021 5:04 pm