Social Care Workforce Economics Report · 2026
What it costs to staff a
care service. And what is scheduled to change it.
Day one sick pay, guaranteed hours, the National Living Wage, the Fair Pay Agreement, the July 2028 visa cliff. None of it is speculation. All of it is already law or formally scheduled, and all of it lands on the same wage bill.
Everyone else tells you what last year cost. Workforce Economics 2026 models the next three, one service, bed by bed, with the method published so your finance team can check it.
Everyone else tells you what last year cost. Workforce Economics 2026 models the next three, one service, bed by bed, with the method published so your finance team can check it.
First look
What does it cost to staff a care home in England and what is scheduled to change?
Workforce Economics 2026 is a social care workforce report published by Care Hires. The report models one 40-bed residential care home without nursing, in the south of England, and carries that home through six chapters to April 2029.
Staffing that home costs about £620 per bed per week in 2026/27, rising to £643 per bed per week in 2027/28, and to between £688 and £736 per bed per week by 2028/29 depending on where the Fair Pay Agreement settles. That is an increase of roughly £4,300 per bed per year, or about £172,000 a year for a 40-bed home, before any change in fee income.
Staffing that home costs about £620 per bed per week in 2026/27, rising to £643 per bed per week in 2027/28, and to between £688 and £736 per bed per week by 2028/29 depending on where the Fair Pay Agreement settles. That is an increase of roughly £4,300 per bed per year, or about £172,000 a year for a 40-bed home, before any change in fee income.
The changes driving the increase are already law or formally scheduled: National Living Wage uprating in April 2027, the unfair dismissal qualifying period falling to six months in January 2027, the Employment Rights Act guaranteed hours and shift notice provisions during 2027, the first Fair Pay Agreement in April 2028, and the closure of the care worker visa route on 22 July 2028.
Every assumption behind the model is published in the report.
£620
in 2026/27
£643
in 2027/28
£736
up to in 2028/29
six chapters
What Workforce Economics 2026 covers.
The workforce in 2026
The headline improved. What happened underneath it, and which part of the supply has quietly gone.
Retention, pay and the domestic pipeline
What one leaver actually costs, line by line. Where turnover concentrates, and why most of what looks like recruitment is not growing the pool.
Sponsorship and licence revocation
What happens to a rota when a sponsor licence is withdrawn, and what the 22 July 2028 cliff costs a home that sponsors. Costed as a table you can hold against your own headcount.
The cost of employing people
The wage floor, National Insurance, the Employment Rights Act and the Fair Pay Agreement, each costed separately, so you can see which one actually moves your number.
Temporary staffing
Five components make up the true cost of a covered shift. One of them reaches the invoice. The chapter prices the other four, and sets out three exposures that never appear on one, including the change to right to work duties on 1 October 2026.
The cost of a bed
Everything assembled, per bed per week, this year, next year and 2028/29, with three Fair Pay Agreement scenarios side by side, and six levers in the order we would pull them.
Every source and calculation is printed. Care hours per resident day, salaries, on-costs, the lot.
Get the full report
Who should read the report?
01
Finance directors & CFOs
A costed three-year view of the wage bill, with the workings attached.
02
Owners & the boards
What the next three years do to cost per bed, and what lever is worth pulling first.
03
HR directors & CPOs
Where the compliance risk now sits, from sponsor licences to the right to work duties that reach agency and substituted workers.
04
Operations directors & COOs
What the Employment Rights Act does to a rota and what notice is worth once late changes carry a statutory price.