Adults’ services account for over 68% of the Scottish social service workforce

These tables look at a time series from 2011 to 2021 of the adults' services workforce and show the change over time of the composition of adults’ services.

These tables also  include an overview of the headcount, numbers of services, median number of staff and employer type for all adults’ services’ sub-sectors.

Key points

• The adults' services workforce headcount has increased by over 4300, a rise of just over 3% since 2011, whereas the overall number of services fell by 58 (1.5%).
• The increase in headcount was not evenly spread across the sub-sectors but was mainly driven by increases to the housing support/care at home sub-sector, particularly the sole care at home sub type which saw an increase of over 11000 staff (141%). Some other sub sectors saw a drop in headcount.
• Within care homes for adults there are now fewer services but with larger median staffing numbers than before (the exception is in blood borne services). The decrease in services has been year on year with the biggest annual decrease being 43 between 2014 and 2015, and the smallest being between 2019 and 2020 with a decrease of 12.
• The private sector has remained the largest employer with the most number of filled posts over the below reported time span (employing 42% of the workforce in 2021, followed by private (30.5%) and public (28.5%).   
• There was a fall of 2,500 in the workforce employed in services jointly registered to provide both care at home and housing support, and a rise of 141% and 3% respectively within the sole care at home and sole housing support sub types.
• Nurse agencies saw an increase in headcount of over 1400, a rise of 73% since 2011.  

The below tables also show median hours, age, gender, part time/full time and  job function for the workforce in care homes for adults and housing support/care at home services. These two sub-sectors are broken down into further sub-types.

If you have any enquiries about these tables, please contact:

Zara Gall
Tel: 01382 723657
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.