Staff turnover and job vacancy rates are persistently high in UK social care. Understanding the drivers of staff retention and motivators of care staff is important to enable the sector to provide sustainable, high-quality services and meet increasing demand. This project, which runs between April 2019 and March 2022, aims to help social care providers, commissioners, regulators and policy-makers understand the specific organisational and individual drivers of staff retention in the social care sector by exploring:

• What specific characteristics do social care workers have, and how committed are they to their jobs, when compared with workers in other low-wage service industries?
• Why are there differences in retention rates between social care providers, and between social care and other low-wage service industries?
• Why do care workers decide to leave their jobs, and why do some job leavers choose to leave the social care industry altogether?
• What is the impact of COVID-19 on workforce retention and sustainability?

We are answering these questions by:

• Analysing existing data from national surveys and large datasets, primarily: the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey; the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings; the Employer Skills Survey; the National Minimum Dataset for Social Care (NMDS-SC); the Skills for Care survey of individual employers and personal assistants; and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) health and social care provider register.
• Collecting primary data on the impact of COVID-19 on the social care workforce by means of: a) a ‘pulse’ workforce web survey; and b) a longitudinal (two wave) telephone survey of care workers.
• As well as carrying out the data analysis, we will consult and work closely with adult social care stakeholders, including providers, care users, care workers, family carers, commissioners, regulators and policy makers. We will organise annual workshops across the country to gather views on emerging findings and generate examples of ‘good working conditions/quality jobs’ in the social care industry, and pathways to achieve these nationally.

When are Ongoing