Workforce estimates

To support our workforce intelligence publications, we have published several data files containing information from our adult social care workforce estimates. To learn how we create out estimates please visit our Methodology webpage.

Download area

Workforce estimates

This adult social care workforce estimates file is an accompaniment to ‘The state of the adult social care workforce in England’ report. The file is updated annually in October and provides information about the characteristics of the adult social care workforce at an England and regional level.

Workforce estimates - 2023/24

Data downloads – information from the current year

These files contain granular workforce estimates information of variables collected by the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) and are updated annually in October. Each file contains information at England level as well as a geographic breakdown and can be filtered by area, sector, main service and job role.

Current year regional area data download – 2023/24

Current year local area data download – 2023/24

Current year ICB area data download – 2023/24

Data downloads – trended information

This file contains trended information from 2016/17 onwards for key variables and is updated annually in June. The file contains information at England level as well as a regional breakdown and can be filtered by area, sector, main service and job role group.

Trended data download – 2023/24

Changes to filled posts trends in 2023/24

New job roles were added to the ASC-WDS in August 2023 which caused some changes to filled post trends overall. To learn more, please read our statement.

Changes to filled post trends in 2023/24

Glossary of terms

To accompany our publications and to support all the excel file downloads above, we have created a ‘glossary of terms’ document. This outlines the terminology we use to describe the adult social care sector and workforce, as well as the variables we use to analyse the workforce and how we calculate these.

Glossary of terms

What's included in the workforce estimates and data downloads

Data on topics at England and regional geographical levels, including:

How many are employed, in what role and where they are employed
Employment overview: full-time or part-time status, zero-hours contracts
Demographics: gender, age, disability status, ethnicity, and nationality
Recruitment and retention: experience in sector and role, and source of recruitment
Pay rates
Care Certificate, training, and qualification information
Workforce projections of the size of the future adult social care workforce information to 2040.

How the workforce estimates are created

We use data collected by the ASC-WDS to create workforce models that, in turn, allow for estimates of the whole adult social care workforce to be produced.
Our methodology allows the analysis to be representative of all adult social care workers, even if the ASC-WDS has uneven levels of data coverage.
All data is validated at source and has been through rigorous data quality checks before analysis.
Skills for Care has confidence in the quality of these estimates; the methodologies used have been peer reviewed by universities and an independent statistician.
Details of our methodology including our ‘Methods Paper’ can be found here.

Further resources

Find further information at national level.
Information at a regional level is available and at a local level.
Monthly tracking data is also available for total staff, vacancy rates, occupancy rates, and staff sickness.

Commission us

We can be commissioned to produce a bespoke analysis of workforce information to answer any specific questions you have about the adult social care workforce. Take a look at our 'commission our services' page for more information or contact us to talk about how we can help.