Adult social care is not short of workforce ambition.

The sector now has a national workforce strategy.

It has a universal career pathway covering almost every directly employed role.

It has a negotiating structure being established for the first Fair Pay Agreement.

It has new national evidence on vacancies, workforce growth, financial insecurity, anxiety, career development and intention to leave.

It has funding for learning and development, updated leadership frameworks and practical examples showing how providers are improving recruitment, retention and staff wellbeing.

There is greater national recognition than before that care work must become better rewarded, more clearly structured and capable of offering a lasting career.

The direction is becoming clearer.

But policies, frameworks and announcements do not cover a shift.

They do not welcome a new employee on their first day.

They do not reorganise an unworkable rota.

They do not support a manager after a serious incident.

They do not ensure that training changes practice.

And they do not automatically translate a national funding promise into the sustainable provider income required to improve pay.

That is the challenge at the centre of the final part of the Care Workforce Reset.

The sector is moving from a period dominated by workforce crisis towards one shaped by workforce reform.

Whether that reform produces lasting change will depend on what happens next inside care organisations.

Policy can create the conditions for improvement. Providers still have to turn those conditions into a better working experience.

The Workforce Challenge Has Changed Shape

The latest figures show genuine progress.

England’s adult social care vacancy rate fell to 6.2% during 2025/26, its lowest level in a decade. Approximately 96,000 posts remained vacant on any given day, but that represented a reduction of 10.5% from the previous year.

The number of filled posts increased by approximately 22,000.

However, workforce growth slowed to 1.4%, its lowest rate in four years, while vacancy levels remained around three times higher than across the wider economy.

These figures tell an important story.

The most acute vacancy pressure may be easing, but the sector cannot assume that recent workforce growth will continue automatically.

Providers are now facing a different set of questions:

• Can the people recruited during recent years be retained?
• Are new employees becoming confident and competent quickly enough?
• Are experienced workers being given reasons to remain?
• Can providers attract more people from the domestic workforce?
• Are managers able to lead improvement while maintaining daily services?
• Can career progression become visible before employees look elsewhere?
• Will commissioning income keep pace with pay reform?
• Is workforce technology reducing pressure or simply recording it?

The crisis has not ended.

It has moved from an immediate shortage of people towards a broader challenge of workforce quality, stability and sustainability.

That requires a different response.

Recruitment activity alone will not be enough.

The Five Messages from the Care Workforce Reset

Across this series, five connected messages have emerged.

Vacancies are only one measure of workforce strength

A role can be filled while the service remains fragile.

Absence, restricted availability, low confidence, weak induction, manager overload and high early turnover can all continue beneath an improving vacancy rate.

Retention begins before the first shift

The recruitment promise, pre-employment communication, induction, rota experience and quality of early management all influence whether a new employee remains.

The first 90 days are not simply a probationary period. They are the period in which employment begins to feel sustainable — or does not.

Wellbeing is shaped by the work itself

Support services matter, but no wellbeing application can permanently correct missed breaks, inaccurate pay, repeated violence, unpredictable hours or an unmanageable workload.

The latest national research found that 40% of the workforce reported high anxiety, 56% lacked sufficient financial security and 46% often or constantly worried about work outside working hours.

Fair pay must be connected to clear careers

A new national pay floor could improve the attractiveness and value of care roles.

But without wider workforce planning, it could also compress pay differences between new, experienced, specialist and leadership positions.

The Care Workforce Pathway provides a structure through which roles, capabilities and progression can become clearer. It now covers 18 categories across direct care, specialist practice, leadership, management and supporting functions.

National reform will succeed or fail through local implementation

The Adult Social Care Negotiating Body will create a new national process for agreeing pay and employment conditions.

But the employee’s experience will still be shaped by their provider, their manager, their rota, their colleagues and the support surrounding them.

The reset therefore has to operate at two levels:

Nationally, through funding, pay reform, workforce strategy and recognised career structures.

Organisationally, through leadership, job quality, workforce data, development, technology and daily practice.

Both are required.

Adult Social Care Does Not Need Another Standalone Workforce Initiative

One of the risks facing providers is that each new workforce development becomes a separate project.

Recruitment sits with HR.

Induction sits with learning and development.

Rotas sit with operations.

Wellbeing sits with another team.

Payroll sits with finance.

Career progression sits within appraisal.

Regulatory evidence sits with quality assurance.

The Care Workforce Pathway is then added as another programme, followed by Fair Pay Agreement preparation, manager development and new workforce technology.

Each activity may be valuable.

The difficulty is that the employee experiences them as one working life.

A care worker does not separate the organisation into departmental responsibilities.

They experience:

• how quickly someone responds to their application;
• whether the job matches what was described;
• whether their pay is correct;
• whether their rota is workable;
• whether training prepares them;
• whether their manager listens;
• whether good work is recognised;
• and whether they can see a future.

The provider therefore needs a connected workforce operating model rather than a collection of individual initiatives.

That model should answer six questions:

1. Who do we need?
2. How will we attract them?
3. How will we prepare them?
4. What will make the role sustainable?
5. How will their capability and career develop?
6. How will we know whether the approach is working?

The answers should connect recruitment, onboarding, management, learning, wellbeing, pay, technology and workforce planning.

That is what turns workforce activity into workforce strategy.

Start by Establishing the Truth

A meaningful reset must begin with an honest view of the current workforce.

Many providers hold the information they need, but it is fragmented across:

• payroll;
• rotas;
• learning systems;
• recruitment platforms;
• supervision notes;
• agency invoices;
• incident systems;
• HR records;
• exit interviews;
• and local spreadsheets.

The first task is not to purchase another system.

It is to determine which workforce questions the organisation currently cannot answer.

A provider should be able to see:

• vacancies by service and role;
• time taken to recruit;
• accepted offers that do not become starts;
• 30-, 60- and 90-day retention;
• overall turnover;
• length of service;
• absence;
• overtime;
• agency usage;
• training and competence;
• supervision and appraisal;
• pay and payroll concerns;
• incidents affecting staff;
• employee feedback;
• internal progression;
• and reasons for leaving.

This information should be visible by service, role, manager and working pattern wherever appropriate.

An organisation-wide average can conceal serious local instability.

A provider may appear to have acceptable overall turnover while one service repeatedly loses new employees.

Training completion may be high while practical competence remains uncertain.

Agency expenditure may be reducing overall while overtime pressure rises elsewhere.

Good data does not remove the need for leadership judgement.

It makes that judgement better informed.

More than 21,000 providers now contribute information to the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set, which supports national estimates and gives organisations access to workforce intelligence for planning and decision-making.

The important step is to move from collecting workforce data to using it.

Measure the Employee Journey, Not Just the Headcount

Traditional workforce reporting frequently begins and ends with:

• number of employees;
• vacancies;
• turnover;
• sickness;
• and mandatory training.

These remain important.

But they do not explain where workforce stability is being gained or lost.

Providers need to understand the employee journey.

Attraction

Which recruitment channels produce suitable candidates who remain?

More applications do not necessarily mean better recruitment.

Conversion

How many applicants become interviews, offers and actual starts?

Where are suitable people being lost?

Early experience

How many new employees remain after one, two and three months?

What do they say about communication, induction, shadowing, rotas and management?

Capability

How long does it take before a new employee is confidently and safely performing their role?

Which competencies require additional support?

Development

Are employees gaining skills, qualifications and responsibility?

Can they see what comes next?

Retention

Who remains, who leaves and why?

Are repeated patterns connected to a particular service, manager, role or working arrangement?

This creates a more useful definition of workforce success.

Recruitment succeeds when the right person becomes an established and effective member of the team.

Training succeeds when capability improves.

Wellbeing support succeeds when a pressure becomes easier to manage or prevent.

Technology succeeds when it releases time, improves visibility or produces a better employee experience.

The measurement must follow the outcome.

Fix the First 90 Days First

Providers may identify many workforce issues during a reset.

The first 90 days of employment remain one of the most practical places to begin.

This period sits at the intersection of:

• recruitment;
• induction;
• training;
• management;
• rota planning;
• employee wellbeing;
• workplace culture;
• and retention.

Improvement here can influence several outcomes at once.

A consistent early-employment framework should include:

Before the first day

Maintain contact, complete checks promptly, confirm working arrangements and explain exactly what will happen when the employee arrives.

The first week

Provide a structured welcome, introduce the service and the people receiving care, begin supported shadowing and identify a named buddy.

The first month

Review confidence, practical competence, rota experience, wellbeing and whether the role matches what was described.

The second month

Address developing concerns, provide feedback and begin identifying skills, interests and possible areas of development.

The third month

Review the complete employee experience, recognise progress, resolve remaining barriers and agree the next stage of development.

This process should be reliable without becoming impersonal.

Technology can provide checklists, reminders, training records and central visibility.

The human elements — welcome, reassurance, feedback and belonging — still require people.

The strongest workforce systems will create enough organisation for managers to spend more time supporting employees, not less.

Redesign the Pressures That Can Be Changed

The wellbeing findings explored in Part 3 demonstrate why providers must look beyond individual resilience.

A workforce reset should identify avoidable pressure within the design of work.

That may include:

• rotas published too late;
• frequent shift changes;
• unrealistic travel schedules;
• duplicated recording;
• unclear handovers;
• missed breaks;
• repeated payroll errors;
• limited post-incident support;
• managers permanently covering vacancies;
• or employees carrying responsibilities beyond their role.

Not every pressure can be removed.

Care is complex, emotionally demanding and sometimes unpredictable.

But pressure should not be accepted simply because it has become familiar.

Providers should distinguish between:

Pressure inherent in care

Supporting distressed people, responding to deterioration and managing difficult circumstances will always require skill and emotional resilience.

Pressure created by the organisation

Poor communication, weak planning, unreliable technology, inaccurate information and unclear accountability are preventable.

Pressure created by the wider system

Unsustainable commissioning, delayed assessments, discharge pressure and insufficient funding may sit beyond the provider’s direct control but still require evidence and escalation.

This distinction prevents the workforce from being blamed for struggling with problems it did not create.

It also helps providers decide what they can change internally, what requires specialist support and what must be addressed with commissioners or system partners.

CQC’s workforce wellbeing and enablement quality statement directly connects staff wellbeing with the ability to deliver safe, effective and person-centred care.

Workforce wellbeing is therefore not separate from quality improvement.

It is one of its foundations.

Give Managers Infrastructure, Not Another Expectation

Almost every workforce improvement eventually reaches the registered manager.

They are expected to:

• attract and retain staff;
• create a positive culture;
• organise rotas;
• supervise performance;
• manage incidents;
• protect wellbeing;
• develop future leaders;
• prepare regulatory evidence;
• control agency expenditure;
• and maintain care quality.

The answer cannot be to keep adding responsibilities while describing managers as resilient.

A workforce reset should examine what sits around the manager.

Do they have:

• accurate and usable workforce data?
• administrative support?
• reliable systems?
• clear HR and employment guidance?
• access to occupational-health or wellbeing expertise?
• protected time for supervision?
• support after serious incidents?
• opportunities to learn from other managers?
• authority to resolve local problems?
• and a clear escalation route when the issue exceeds their control?

Skills for Care’s updated Leadership Qualities Framework places strengthened emphasis on inclusive leadership, co-production and digital confidence. It can be used across recruitment, supervision, development and workforce planning rather than being treated solely as a training document.

Supporting managers also requires succession planning.

The Care Workforce Pathway gives providers a clearer structure for identifying future supervisors, practice leaders, deputy managers and registered managers.

Leadership development should begin before a vacancy appears.

The next manager should not be discovered only when the current one leaves.

Make the Care Workforce Pathway Operational

The Care Workforce Pathway could become one of the most useful pieces of workforce infrastructure available to providers.

It could also remain a national framework that employees rarely encounter.

The difference will lie in adoption.

Skills for Care describes several levels of implementation, allowing providers to begin proportionately rather than attempting a complete organisational restructure immediately.

The pathway can be used to:

• improve job descriptions;
• set expectations during recruitment;
• structure onboarding;
• inform supervision;
• identify learning needs;
• support career conversations;
• map specialist capability;
• and plan succession.

A practical starting point is to choose one workforce problem.

For example:

Problem: New employees do not understand what competence should look like after induction.

Pathway response: Use the relevant knowledge, skills and behaviours to structure the first 90 days.

Or:

Problem: Experienced workers leave because progression appears limited.

Pathway response: Map enhanced care, practice leadership, care technology or supervisory opportunities.

Or:

Problem: Job titles and responsibilities differ across services.

Pathway response: Compare current roles with common national categories and clarify expectations.

The pathway should not be adopted because it exists.

It should be used to solve an identified workforce problem.

That principle should apply to every external framework and solution introduced during the reset.

Prepare for Fair Pay Without Waiting for the Final Rate

The first Fair Pay Agreement is expected to take effect in April 2028.

Before then, the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body will be established, an independent chair appointed and employer and worker representatives brought together to negotiate within a government funding envelope.

Providers do not yet know the final minimum rate or the complete terms of the first agreement.

But they can still prepare.

Preparation should include:

• accurate employee and pay data;
• clear job roles;
• current contracts;
• total employment costs;
• pay enhancements;
• travel, training and sleep-in arrangements;
• seniority and specialist differentials;
• service-level margin;
• and evidence required for commissioner discussions.

The government’s 2026/27 adult social care priorities specifically call on local authorities to set sustainable fee rates that help providers recruit and stabilise a skilled workforce and prepare for employment reforms and the Fair Pay Agreement.

That expectation is important.

A sustainable reset cannot depend on providers absorbing major additional workforce costs indefinitely.

But providers will need credible evidence.

The organisations best placed to influence commissioning conversations will be those that can explain clearly:

• what their workforce costs;
• how those costs differ by service;
• what safe staffing requires;
• how pay changes affect differentials;
• and what would happen if funding fails to follow the obligation.

Workforce planning and financial planning can no longer operate separately.

Turn Learning into Capability

Adult social care invests heavily in training.

The next stage is to become more precise about the outcome that training is expected to create.

A workforce reset should distinguish between:

• awareness;
• knowledge;
• practical competence;
• specialist capability;
• and leadership responsibility.

Not every course needs to produce an accredited qualification.

But every learning activity should have a purpose.

Providers should ask:

• Why is this learning needed?
• Which role or responsibility does it support?
• How will the employee use it?
• Who will assess practical competence?
• What evidence will be retained?
• What improvement should result?
• Is the employee’s increased capability recognised?

The national Workforce Strategy groups its recommendations around three connected areas: attract and retain, train and transform.

Training cannot sit between attraction and transformation as an isolated activity.

It is the mechanism through which people become more capable, services adopt new ways of working and employees gain access to progression.

Learning providers, apprenticeship organisations and technology platforms should therefore be able to explain how their provision connects to recognised workforce needs and practical outcomes.

A large course library is not in itself a workforce strategy.

Relevant learning, applied well and followed by evidence of competence, is.

Use Technology to Release Capacity

Workforce technology is expanding rapidly across:

• recruitment;
• HR;
• rostering;
• payroll;
• learning;
• communication;
• employee engagement;
• wellbeing;
• and workforce analytics.

The opportunity is considerable.

So is the risk of creating another layer of administration.

Every technology decision should be tested against the reality of care.

Does it:

• reduce duplicated work?
• make rotas clearer?
• improve communication?
• identify workforce gaps earlier?
• give managers a usable view of their service?
• connect training with competence?
• improve payroll accuracy?
• help employees access support?
• or release more time for care and leadership?

The answer should be demonstrated rather than assumed.

A platform may contain many features while solving none of the provider’s priority problems.

A simpler system that addresses one serious operational weakness may produce greater value.

Skills for Care’s practical workforce toolkits deliberately combine planning, governance, digital tools, workforce development and impact measurement. The emphasis is on adopting workable models rather than introducing isolated interventions.

That is the standard providers should apply to workforce technology.

Start with the problem.

Define the outcome.

Then determine whether technology is the most appropriate route.

Build the Reset Around Outcomes for People Receiving Care

Workforce strategy can become dominated by internal measures.

Vacancies, turnover, training and absence are all organisational indicators.

But the ultimate purpose of workforce improvement is better care.

A more stable workforce should produce:

• greater continuity;
• stronger relationships;
• earlier recognition of changing needs;
• fewer missed or rushed interactions;
• better communication with families;
• more consistent care planning;
• safer medication support;
• stronger safeguarding;
• and greater confidence among the people receiving care.

A career pathway matters because skilled and experienced workers provide better support.

Wellbeing matters because exhausted and unsupported employees cannot provide unlimited emotional attention.

Good induction matters because people receiving care should not repeatedly encounter workers who feel unprepared.

Fair pay matters because continuity depends on people being able to sustain a career.

Technology matters when it releases time for relationships, judgement and care.

The government’s 2026/27 priorities place high-quality adult social care delivered by a skilled workforce at the centre of the expected national outcomes.

Providers should therefore connect every workforce intervention to the experience of the person receiving care.

That keeps the reset grounded in its real purpose.

A Practical 90-Day Care Workforce Reset

A provider does not need to change every part of its workforce model at once.

Trying to do so may create more pressure than improvement.

The following 90-day structure offers a practical starting point.

Days 1 to 30: See the Workforce Clearly

Bring together the available workforce evidence.

Review:

• vacancies;
• recruitment conversion;
• early turnover;
• overall turnover;
• absence;
• agency and overtime;
• training;
• supervision;
• pay concerns;
• employee feedback;
• incidents affecting staff;
• and management capacity.

Speak directly with employees and managers.

Identify where workforce instability is concentrated and select no more than three priority problems.

The first month should create clarity, not a long list of activities.

Days 31 to 60: Fix What Is Most Preventable

Choose interventions connected to the identified causes.

This might include:

• introducing structured first-day and first-90-day processes;
• improving candidate communication;
• revising one unstable rota;
• providing stronger post-incident support;
• correcting recurring payroll problems;
• creating protected supervision time;
• mapping one group of roles against the Care Workforce Pathway;
• or removing duplicated workforce administration.

Assign responsibility.

Define the intended outcome.

Set a date for review.

Days 61 to 90: Embed and Measure

Examine whether the employee experience is changing.

Review:

• retention;
• manager feedback;
• employee confidence;
• rota stability;
• workload;
• training progress;
• incidents;
• and any relevant quality measures.

Keep what is working.

Adapt what is not.

Build the agreed measures into routine workforce and board reporting.

The first 90 days should not complete the reset.

They should create a disciplined way of continuing it.

From a 90-Day Reset to a 12-Month Workforce Plan

Once the immediate priorities are clear, providers can build a longer improvement programme.

Quarter 1: Stabilise

Focus on urgent workforce visibility, early retention, rota pressure, pay accuracy and manager support.

Quarter 2: Develop

Begin role mapping, targeted learning, career conversations, leadership development and succession planning.

Quarter 3: Transform

Review technology, workforce design, specialist roles, delegated responsibilities and new approaches to care delivery.

Quarter 4: Sustain

Evaluate impact, prepare the next workforce budget, strengthen commissioning evidence and embed the most effective practices.

The plan should remain focused.

An extensive strategy containing dozens of actions can become difficult to deliver and almost impossible for employees to experience.

Three or four visible workforce priorities, pursued properly, may produce more lasting change.

What Should Providers Expect from Workforce Partners?

The Care Workforce Reset creates a significant opportunity for organisations supplying:

• recruitment services;
• applicant-tracking technology;
• HR and employment support;
• payroll;
• rostering;
• workforce analytics;
• learning and development;
• apprenticeships;
• leadership programmes;
• employee benefits;
• financial wellbeing;
• occupational health;
• mental-health support;
• incident management;
• lone-worker protection;
• communications tools;
• and workforce consultancy.

But the provider should not begin with the product.

It should begin with the workforce problem.

A credible partner should be able to explain:

• which pressure it addresses;
• what information it needs;
• how implementation will work in a care environment;
• what burden it will remove;
• what managers and employees will experience differently;
• how it works alongside existing systems;
• and which measurable outcome should improve.

That outcome might be:

• faster recruitment;
• fewer candidates lost;
• higher 90-day retention;
• improved rota predictability;
• reduced agency use;
• stronger training evidence;
• improved competence;
• more accurate pay;
• earlier access to support;
• clearer career progression;
• or reduced management administration.

The strongest partners will recognise that care providers are not looking for more activity.

They are looking for greater stability, safer care and evidence that something has genuinely improved.

Workforce Improvement Must Be Co-Produced

A workforce reset designed entirely in a senior meeting is unlikely to capture the complete employee experience.

Frontline workers know:

• which processes waste time;
• where communication fails;
• what makes a difficult shift harder;
• why new starters struggle;
• which training is useful;
• and what would make the organisation easier to remain with.

Managers understand where policy and operational reality collide.

People receiving care and their families understand the importance of continuity, confidence and relationships.

The strongest improvement plans will involve all three perspectives.

Co-production does not mean every suggestion can be implemented.

It means decisions are shaped by the people who will experience their consequences.

Providers should explain:

• what was heard;
• what will change;
• what cannot currently change;
• and how progress will be reviewed.

This creates ownership.

It also helps prevent workforce initiatives from feeling like something being done to employees rather than with them.

What Should Boards and Senior Leaders Be Reviewing?

Workforce information should sit alongside quality, finance and operational performance.

Boards, owners, nominated individuals and senior teams should be able to answer:

1. Where is workforce instability concentrated?
2. How many new employees remain after 90 days?
3. Which services rely most heavily on overtime or agency cover?
4. What are employees telling us about workload, management and working conditions?
5. Are responsibilities and pay aligned?
6. Can employees see clear routes to develop?
7. Which workforce interventions have produced measurable improvement?
8. Do managers have the capacity and infrastructure to lead their services?
9. How prepared are we for the Fair Pay Agreement and related employment reforms?
10. What difference is workforce improvement making to people receiving care?

This is not about turning workforce experience into a collection of numbers.

It is about making sure the organisation understands one of its greatest operational and quality risks.

What Does a Successful Workforce Reset Look Like?

Success will not mean that providers never experience vacancies, absence or difficult periods.

Adult social care operates within changing demand, constrained funding and complex human circumstances.

A successful reset will be visible in a different set of conditions.

New employees will know what to expect.

Induction will prepare people rather than process them.

Managers will see workforce concerns before they become resignations.

Employees will be paid accurately and understand their working arrangements.

Rotas will be as stable and fair as the service allows.

Learning will build capability.

Career development will be visible.

Specialist responsibility will be recognised.

Wellbeing support will be accessible, but organisational causes of pressure will also be addressed.

Technology will remove work rather than relocate it.

Commissioning conversations will be supported by credible cost evidence.

And the people receiving care will experience greater continuity, confidence and quality.

That is a workforce reset made real.

The Sector Has Momentum — It Now Needs Implementation

Adult social care enters the second half of 2026 with more workforce momentum than it has had for some time.

Vacancies have fallen.

A national career pathway has expanded.

A Fair Pay Agreement process is being established.

New workforce evidence is available.

Learning and leadership support are developing.

Providers across the sector are showing that alternative approaches to recruitment, pay, wellbeing and workforce design can work.

But momentum is not the same as lasting change.

The greatest risk is that each development remains separate:

A pathway that does not reshape careers.

A pay agreement that is not sustainably funded.

A wellbeing programme that does not alter working conditions.

A recruitment campaign that does not improve retention.

A new system that does not release time.

A strategy that employees never experience.

The care workforce does not need another promise that improvement will eventually arrive.

It needs practical changes that can be seen in the next application, the next induction, the next rota, the next supervision and the next opportunity to progress.

That is where national reform becomes real.

And it is where providers, commissioners and specialist workforce partners must now focus their attention.

The Care Workforce Reset is not one intervention.

It is a decision to connect the whole employee experience.

To recruit with greater honesty.

To retain with greater purpose.

To support wellbeing by improving work.

To recognise skill through pay and progression.

To equip managers rather than simply relying on them.

And to measure success through stronger services and better lives.

Policy has set a new direction.

The next stage belongs to practice.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a care workforce reset?

A care workforce reset is a connected review of how a provider attracts, recruits, onboards, supports, develops and retains its employees. It should address workforce data, job quality, management, wellbeing, pay, progression, learning and technology rather than treating each area as a separate initiative.

Why is workforce planning still important if care vacancies are falling?

Vacancy levels have improved, but adult social care still has approximately 96,000 vacancies and a vacancy rate around three times higher than the wider economy. Workforce growth has also slowed, meaning providers need to focus on retention, capability and longer-term supply.

Where should a care provider begin?

The provider should begin by bringing together its workforce evidence and identifying where stability is being lost. Useful starting measures include recruitment conversion, early turnover, absence, agency use, training, supervision, employee feedback and reasons for leaving.

How does the Care Workforce Pathway support providers?

The pathway gives providers a national structure for defining roles, setting expectations, improving job descriptions, guiding onboarding, planning learning and making career progression more visible. Providers can adopt it at different levels according to their needs and capacity.

What should providers do before the Fair Pay Agreement takes effect?

Providers should improve workforce and pay data, review roles and job descriptions, understand pay differentials, calculate total employment costs, assess payroll readiness and strengthen evidence for future commissioning discussions.

How can suppliers support the care workforce reset?

Suppliers can support defined outcomes such as stronger recruitment, improved onboarding, more stable rotas, better training evidence, accurate payroll, accessible wellbeing support and reduced management administration. Providers should select solutions according to the identified problem and measurable outcome rather than features alone.

How long should a workforce reset take?

An initial diagnostic and improvement phase can begin within 90 days, but lasting workforce transformation requires ongoing implementation, measurement and review. Providers should treat the first 90 days as the beginning of a sustained workforce plan.

Editorial sources

This feature has been developed using evidence available by 6 August 2026.

• Skills for Care, Adult Social Care Vacancy Rate Falls to Lowest Level in a Decade as Workforce Grows, published 24 June 2026.
• Department of Health and Social Care, Work-Related Quality of Life of the Adult Social Care Workforce in England in 2025, published 2 July 2026.
• Department of Health and Social Care, Fair Pay Agreement Process in Adult Social Care: Government Response, published 16 July 2026.
• Department of Health and Social Care, Care Workforce Pathway for Adult Social Care: Overview, updated 16 July 2026.
• Department of Health and Social Care, Adult Social Care Priorities for Local Authorities: 2026 to 2027.
• Skills for Care, A Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England.
• Skills for Care, Practical Approaches Toolkits.
• Care Quality Commission, Workforce Wellbeing and Enablement.
• Skills for Care, Adopting the Care Workforce Pathway.

Author: CSN Editor