Responding to the latest workforce data from Skills for Care, which shows the median hourly rate for care workers at £12.60 in December 2025, just 39p above the National Living Wage, and a growing proportion of staff sitting on or just above the minimum wage, Care England has said the figures expose the growing strain within the workforce and reinforce the concerns raised in its recent Silent Pay Cut report. When the median rate sits just 39p above the minimum wage, it shows how tightly the sector is operating, and helps explain why recent pay rises, while welcome, have delivered only modest real-terms gains.
The data shows that 26% of care workers are now paid on or within 10p of the National Living Wage, up from 22% earlier in the year. Experienced staff earn on average just 10p more than those new to the sector. Nearly half of the workforce will need a pay uplift in April simply to meet the new £12.71 statutory minimum, affecting around 640,000 roles and 90% of independent providers.
Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England, said:
“There is a danger that we look at these numbers and see percentages, when what we are really looking at are people.
We are talking about carers who support someone to get out of bed in the morning, who manage complex medication, who sit with families in the hardest moments of their lives. When experienced staff are earning just 10p more than someone brand new to the role, something is not working properly.
Providers want to reward experience. They want to build proper progression into the system. But if the funding they receive only stretches to the minimum wage, there is nowhere else to go. That is not a failure of goodwill. It is a consequence of long-term underfunding.”
At the same time, frozen tax thresholds mean that as wages go up, more is taken back. In Care England’s Silent Pay Cut work, we showed that by the time the first Fair Pay Agreement comes into force, care workers will have lost around £1.4 billion cumulatively as a result of frozen thresholds. The year following its introduction, close to £1 billion will be removed from care workers’ take-home pay in that year alone.
Professor Martin Green continued:
“That is money that would otherwise sit in workers’ pockets. Our data shows just how exposed the workforce is to that effect. And this is not abstract. It is the difference between feeling secure and feeling stretched. It is about whether turning the heating on feels like a decision rather than a given, whether the food shop needs to be trimmed back, whether there is anything left once the rent and bills are paid.
That is why headline increases do not automatically translate into felt improvement. Care workers may be earning more on paper, but not enough more to change their day-to-day position in any meaningful way. When tax and threshold policy quietly absorbs part of each increase, the practical effect is that policy gives with one hand and recovers with the other. Reform that does not result in a tangible improvement in take-home pay will inevitably struggle to retain the trust of the workforce it is intended to support.
If the Fair Pay Agreement is going to mean something, it has to result in a genuine improvement in what care workers actually receive. Otherwise we risk telling them they are valued, while leaving their day-to-day reality largely unchanged.”
Care England is calling on Government to ensure that the funding for the Fair Pay Agreement reflects the cumulative impact of frozen tax and National Insurance thresholds, to act early to prevent further erosion of take-home pay, and to align wage policy with fiscal policy so that care workers see a tangible difference in their lives.
Image depicts the Care England logo.