New report estimates 82,875 people work in social care in Wales

There are an estimated 82,875 people working in social care in Wales, according to our latest report on the make-up of the workforce.

We collected data for our Social care workforce report with the help of local authorities and commissioned providers between September and November 2024.

This annual report gives us a picture of the size and characteristics of the social care workforce in Wales.

This is the fourth time we’ve collected data about the entire workforce as a single exercise. It includes data such as the age, gender and ethnicity of the workforce, as well as things like how many hours they work and what kind of contract they’re on.

This year, we also collected data about the visa requirements of the workforce. This is the first time anyone has collected this data.

Summary of findings

Our 2024 data collection found that:

82,875 people were estimated to be employed in the social care workforce in Wales
women occupied 81.1 per cent of roles and men 18.9 per cent
children’s residential care remains the setting with the highest number of men (30.5 per cent)
care worker roles make up more than half the social care workforce (50.8 per cent)
in local authorities, just over half (51.2 per cent) of workers are aged 46 or over. Among commissioned services, 60.5 per cent of workers are younger than 46
the social care workforce is becoming more diverse, with 8.9 per cent of the workforce now reported as being from a black, Asian or minority ethnic group.
5.3 per cent of all social care workers need a working visa to do their jobs
87.2 per cent of the workforce are on permanent contracts
there were an estimated 5,346 open or held vacancies in social care in Wales on 31 March 2024.

Read the report

Social care workforce report 2024
DOCX 3MB

Why the data we collect is important

The data we collect for this report is the only data collected on the entire social care workforce in Wales. Because of this, lots of different people and organisations use the report to inform their work. These include:

Welsh and UK governments
the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS) Cymru and local authorities
regulators such as Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) and Social Care Wales
care providers
researchers
the media
members of the public.

Making sure we have the highest quality data to understand the social care workforce in Wales is incredibly important. Without good quality data, we can’t truly understand the shape and size of social care in Wales.

It also helps us get a better idea of where the demand for care is, in which types of provision, and to plan effectively for the future.

Good quality data enables us to make better decisions, based on evidence. This means we can help to deliver better care and support for people in Wales and provide better support for the hardworking staff who deliver it.

With each collection, we continue to learn more about the information we collect, recognise the challenges that some organisations have in providing data, and begin to understand the variations in the data we receive.

In 2024 we’ve seen a slight decrease in the number of organisations that have submitted data to us, but an increase in the number of returns by the individual settings provided by those organisations. Getting more detail by setting rather than at an organisational level is positive, but it does make comparisons to last year’s data are more difficult.

Creating accurate estimates of the true size of the workforce is also difficult with a low response rate. For 2024, we haven’t been able to estimate the total number of people working in domiciliary care with the accuracy and confidence we need. This means we’ve had to use data from other sources to estimate the total number for domiciliary care, and to help us estimate the overall workforce total.

We also know that providers are currently being asked to provide similar data to both our own data collection and to CIW’s Annual Returns. We’re working with CIW to explore how we could reduce the need for providers to have to collect similar information twice.

2025 data collection

Our 2025 data collection is open until 28 November. Visit our workforce data collection page to find out more about what we need from your organisation.