2025 has been a pretty wild year in homecare. Huge swathes of change to policy have arrived with the change in UK government, as you might expect. Homecare is very much on the agenda (at last) - and needed more than ever. But not all change has been easy for care providers to embrace. And it’s been matched by a groundswell demanding to be heard and respected. So what exactly happened in homecare in 2025?
Overall it’s a picture of growth in homecare in the UK. The CQC has reported an 11% increase in the number of new homecare services registered with them over the last year. Wales appears to have grown faster, with up to 26% more new domiciliary support services registered this year than last. While Scotland has actually seen a 10% reduction in new Care at Home support services.
In total, we’re getting close to 18,500 homecare services across the UK:
Domiciliary care has also overtaken residential care for the first time this year in England. More than half of all CQC-regulated care businesses are now non-residential, reflecting the political shift to care at home first.
The CQC’s ‘State of Care 2025’ report indicates that the volume of the homecare market made up of very small services (that provide homecare to 4 people or fewer) has grown by 7% in the last 2 years - making up more than 28% of the market as of April 2025.
This suggests that homecare providers are able to pop-up quickly in response to local needs. However, the CQC has expressed concern over how financially resilient they are and whether they are more likely to come and go from the market, which has implications for people receiving care.
More than one thousand services were “de-registered” by the CQC in 2025, around 6% of the provider base. 28 CQC-registered homecare services started-up and folded within the year.
The demand for homecare continues to grow. The most recent data from NHS England showed that new requests for local authority-funded adult social care have increased by 4% year on year. This makes up the majority of requests (68%) and based on population growth estimates, Skills for Care predicts that an additional 470,000 posts will be needed in adult social care by 2040, to meet the needs of those aged 65 and above.
However, there is a significant shift in need amongst the working-age population, which is placing additional demand on homecare. NHS England data shows the rate of new requests for adult social care from those aged under 65 has increased by over 14% year on year - equivalent to nearly 100,000 additional requests for care.
Healthy life expectancy has fallen for those over 50. And the cumulative impact of advantage and disadvantage across people’s lives is leading to much greater health inequality as people age. Age UK has been struck by how much disadvantaged people aged 50-64 are struggling - severely impacted by the cost-of-living crisis and exacerbated by low pay or not working because of caring responsibilities, ill health, disability and/or unemployment. Similarly, The King’s Fund has reported an increase in disability among working-age adults, with mental health the most prevalent cause.
There was a brief moment of respite from the workforce crisis in homecare this year, when Skills for Care reported that staff turnover rates and vacancy rates continued to fall to pre-COVID levels.
In May & September 2025, the turnover rate in domiciliary care was the lowest it has ever been at 23.7%. While the homecare job vacancy rate hit a low of 9.7% in October 2025 - largely driven by international recruitment. Which meant a storm was brewing…
2025 was the year of major changes in staffing regulations for homecare - which will have a significant impact on the care workforce over the next few years. There was a massive crackdown on recruiting overseas care workers, with proposals on fair pay and workers’ rights intended to make care a more attractive career option for British nationals instead.
Here are some of the main policy changes:
Recruiting care workers from overseas under the Health and Care Worker visa was banned outright in July 2025
Proposed changes to settlement rules (announced in November 2025) could mean migrant care workers have to wait 15 years for the right to remain in the UK
Meanwhile the Scottish government welcomed displaced care workers with open arms, aiming to bring their “valuable skills to our social care sector” by Christmas
£500 million is to be invested into a Fair Pay Agreement - a type of collective bargaining to increase pay for care workers from 2028
The Employment Rights Bill will bring more workers’ rights throughout 2026 and 2027, including increased sick pay and compensation for cancelled shifts.
Homecare providers found themselves increasingly squeezed by rising costs in 2025 - including an increase to employer National Insurance contributions in April which prior to a U-turn, they would have been exempt from. Operating costs in homecare have increased by 10-12% over the last year, while payment for local authority funded homecare has lagged behind these price rises, at 5-6%.
The Homecare Association called out national and local government for being complicit in “state-sponsored labour exploitation”. The Association’s analysis of homecare commissioning uncovered that 27% of homecare contracts in England are at rates below direct employment costs at the legal minimum wage. Only 1% of contracts meet or exceed the legal and operational threshold for sustainable, safe care.
Against this backdrop, 2025 was the year of #ProvidersUnite: a grassroots movement of carers, families and organisations demanding urgent action to reform adult social care. Marching on Parliament in February and the Labour Party Conference in September, the movement is taking action to call for fair funding, real respect and a future for care we can all trust.
It’s a groundswell of momentum for change, from a care sector that is done with being overlooked and ready to demand its voice be heard.
Away from the frontline, it was a strange year for the CQC. Forced to admit catastrophic failures in its effectiveness as a regulator, the Dash review highlighted problems with the number of inspections, clinical expertise of inspectors, consistency in assessments and general failings in the CQC’s new IT system. For homecare specifically, there has been a huge backlog in processing registrations and updating ratings - frustrating for providers and problematic for people in need of care.
Elsewhere, the Care Inspectorate Wales introduced ratings for the first time. Of the first wave, 92.5% of services were found to be Outstanding or Good and feedback from care providers so far has been pretty positive.
We closed the year with 4 out of 5 care providers now using a digital social care record - helping 90% of people who draw on care. It’s an important milestone which the UK government has been aiming for since its digital maturity programme began almost 10 years ago. And it’s something to be celebrated! 👏
The focus now is for all CQC-registered care services to be ‘fully digitised’ by the end of Parliament - slated to be summer 2029. It’s part of the wider NHS 10 Year Plan to shift from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention - with the ambition for a single, shareable record that contains all of a person’s health and care information.
Which brings me around neatly to 2026. After the year we’ve had in homecare, making predictions feels pretty difficult. But one thing we are certain of is that the societal shifts outlined in the NHS 10 Year plan will bring huge opportunities for homecare to lead the way in what good, community-orientated care looks like. Let’s make our voices heard.
The state of health care and adult social care in England 2024/25, (Care Quality Commission, October 2025)
Data tool (Care Inspectorate Wales, December 2025)
Data store (Care Inspectorate Scotland, November 2025)
The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England 2025, (Skills for Care, October 2025)
The size and structure of the adult social care sector and workforce in England 2024/25 (Skills for Care, October 2025)
Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report, England, 2023-24 (NHS England, October 2024)
The State of Health and Care of Older People in England 2025 (Age UK, September 2025)
Key facts and figures about adult social care (The King’s Fund, June 2025)
Recruitment and retention tracker (Skills for Care, October 2025)
Overseas recruitment: the ‘short-term fix’ for the social care workforce that is now at an end (The King’s Fund, 30 July 2025)
Protecting the social care workforce (Scottish Government, October 2025)
Overseas care staff face 15-year wait for settlement under government immigration plan (Community Care, November 2025)
What will ending overseas recruitment mean for adult social care? (Community Care, May 2025)
£500 million for first ever fair pay agreement for care workers (Department of Health and Social Care, September 2025)
Employment Rights Bill (ACAS, December 2025)
Media Release: The Homecare Association expresses deep concern as MPs reject social care exemption from national insurance hike (Homecare Association, June 2025)
Fee Rates for State-Funded Homecare in 2025-26 (Homecare Association, June 2025)
Media release: Homecare Association calls for a National Contract for Care as new report exposes “State-Sponsored Labour Exploitation” (Homecare Association, June 2025)
Press release: Government acts after report highlights failings at regulator (Department of Health and Social Care, July 2024)
Ratings for care homes and domiciliary support services - seven months on (Care Inspectorate Wales, December 2025)
Press release: Digital revolution in care saves millions of admin hours (department of Health and Social Care, December 2025)