Personal Social Services: Staff of Social Services Departments, England 2020

As at September 2020 there were 114,100 adult social services jobs in local authorities in England (held by 110,400 people), up 0.7% or 800 jobs from 2019. Since reporting began in 2011 there has been a decrease of 28.4% or 45,300 local authority jobs. Although in each of the last three years there has been an increase.

Nearly half of all local authority job roles (52,100 jobs or 45.7%) were in direct care providing roles.   The Professional job group, which includes Social Workers and Occupational Therapists has remained relatively stable, currently reporting 21,200 roles. This is the only job role group to have increased since 2011, also up 100 jobs between 2019 and 2020.

In 2020 an estimated 3.5 million hours per week were worked by 110,400 adult social care staff within local authorities, up 55,000 hours per week since 2019.

The average age of adult social care staff in local authorities is 47.7. This is 4.0 years older when compared to the latest available equivalent for the independent sector (Skills for Care, 2020) and 4.8 years older than the NHS workforce average age.

44.6% of directly employed staff had zero sick days in the year. On average, the mean number of sickness days for staff in local authorities is 10.7 days, up 0.5 days since 2019.