Progressing your career

What is Social Care?

Social Care supports people of all ages with certain physical, cognitive or age-related conditions in carrying out personal care or domestic routines. It helps people to sustain employment in paid or unpaid work, education, learning, leisure, and other social support systems. It supports people in building social relationships and taking part fully in society.

Social Care is part of a wider care and support system, which includes social care, the NHS, the social security system, housing support and public health services. It also includes the services provided by charitable organisations and the invaluable contribution made by carers and volunteers.

Where can I work in Adult Social Care?

Working in adult social care is about providing personal and practical support to help people live their lives well. You could be working in a care home, supported living housing, domiciliary care, daytime support, mental health support or social services, supporting people of different ages with a variety of different needs.

Why choose a career in Adult Social Care?

• With a high demand for workers, plenty of opportunities for career progression, adult social care has much to offer.
• 96% of care workers say their work is rewarding and makes a difference to the ‘real lives’ in their care.
• There are several different kinds of care settings and hundreds of companies to choose from. As well as learning essential skills you will gain many life skills that will be useful to you throughout your career, whatever you choose to do.
• Adult social care is a rewarding career where you can make a real difference to someone’s life and to their family. There are lots of opportunities to progress in the care sector – you can work towards higher qualifications and move up or go sideways into specialist job roles and associated careers.

Job roles in Adult Social Care

There are lots of different job roles in social care; it just depends what you’re interested in, who you want to work with and what care setting you want to work in. Click on the jobs to find out more about each role and the skills, qualifications and experience you might need.

How can I develop my career in Adult Social Care?

No matter what role you start in or where you are in your career path, there are always opportunities to develop and progress in social care.

Social care: a rewarding career is an interactive PDF document that explores the many ways you can develop and progress in social care. It shows the different job roles you can do in social care, and the qualifications and training you might need to do to get there. Here’s some short guidance about how to use it.

To learn more visit: Careers-in-care