Scottish Social Services Workforce Data
Registration data
This page provides information on the numbers of people registered with the SSSC.
Background
One of the SSSC’s statutory duties is to register and regulate all social service workers, social workers and social work students in Scotland. Registration began in 2003 with social workers and has gradually been rolled out across the sector so that it now covers the majority of those working in care services. There are now over 176,000 individuals registered with us.
Registration is for staff who work directly with people who use social services. Nurses, teachers and other professional groups working in a registered care or social work service are not required to register with the SSSC if they have a current registration with their own professional body. There are thought to be approximately 10,000 such staff working in the sector (or around 5% of the total workforce). In addition staff working in ancillary or auxiliary roles (e.g. business support, cleaning, kitchen, IT etc.) do not register.
This means that the coverage of the sector’s workforce is slightly smaller than in the annual workforce data report. Unlike the workforce data gathered by the SSSC, which is a snapshot collected each December, registration data is updated daily by registrants, employers and SSSC staff to reflect each registrant’s current circumstances. Delays in the updating are not unusual. This means that the quarterly registration data published below, provide a snapshot of the register at a particular point in time but not a snapshot of the workforce. Details of differences between the SSSC registration data and the SSSC workforce data are explained here.
Registration is qualification-based. However, in most categories of the register individuals can register before achieving the necessary award. In these cases, they are given a qualification condition which means that they must achieve the qualification within a specified period (in some cases 3 years and others 5). The data made available below provide information on the numbers of registrants in each category and the numbers and percentage with a qualification condition.
Please note that in June 2024 the SSSC made changes to registration. Details of the changes can be found here. A key change was that the number of registration parts changed to just four. The previous registration categories (e.g. practitioner in day care for children or manager in care homes for adults etc.) are now used as sub-categories or levels as can be seen in the table immediately below (see column fifth from left). There is therefore continuity within the data that allows comparison with previously published data.
Current snapshot
The data in this table is a snapshot accurate to 6th January 2025
| REGISTER PART | REGISTER PART SUB TOTAL | REGISTER TYPE | REGISTER TYPE SUBTOTAL | REGISTER LEVEL | SSSC REGISTRANTS | REGISTRANTS WITH A QUALIFICATION CONDITION | PERCENTAGE WITH A QUALIFICATION CONDITION (%) |
| social worker | 10,896 | social worker | 10,896 | social workers | 10,975 | - | 0.0 |
| social work student | 1,846 | social work student | 1,846 | students | 1,916 | - | 0.0 |
| children and young people’s worker | 56,494 | care inspector | 302 | primary authorised officer | 242 | 109 | 45.0 |
| secondary authorised officer | 62 | 14 | 23.3 | ||||
| day care of children services |
46,810 | manager | 3,153 | 1,245 | 39.6 | ||
| practitioner | 33,195 | 4,906 | 14.8 | ||||
| support worker | 10,586 | 5,609 | 53.2 | ||||
| residential child care services |
8,945 | manager | 528 | 219 | 41.7 | ||
| supervisor | 966 | 388 | 40.3 | ||||
| practitioner | 7,516 | 4,029 | 54.2 | ||||
| residential school care accomodation service |
437 | manager | 25 | 15 | 60.0 | ||
| supervisor | 30 | 13 | 43.3 | ||||
| practitioner | 386 | 209 | 54.7 | ||||
| social care worker | 175,443 | care inspector | 306 | primary authorised officer | 245 | 110 | 44.9 |
| secondary authorised officer | 63 | 15 | 24.6 | ||||
| adult day care services |
345 | manager | 347 | 118 | 34.2 | ||
| care home service for adults |
46,459 | manager | 764 | 356 | 46.7 | ||
| supervisor | 4,417 | 2,455 | 55.7 | ||||
| practitioner | 5,216 | 2,088 | 40.1 | ||||
| support worker | 36,388 | 22,925 | 63.5 | ||||
| care at home services |
69,891 | manager | 1,710 | 852 | 50.1 | ||
| supervisor | 4,369 | 2,259 | 51.9 | ||||
| practitioner | 1,634 | 965 | 59.8 | ||||
| support worker | 62,611 | 35,635 | 57.3 | ||||
| housing support services |
58,442 | manager | 1,639 | 756 | 46.3 | ||
| supervisor | 3,904 | 1,836 | 47.1 | ||||
| practitioner | 1,988 | 1,166 | 59.6 | ||||
| support worker | 51,221 | 27,268 | 53.5 | ||||
| Total Figures | 244,679 | 244,679 | 246,096 | 115,560 | 47.2 |
Please note that an individual may appear on more than one part of the register. The total number of unique individuals is 176,510 (6th Jan 2025). There are 1417 applications in process which are included in the SSSC registrants total above.
You can download the current and past register snapshots in either Microsoft Excel (XSLX), Open Document Spreadsheet (ODS) or comma-separated values (CSV) format here. The CSV formats are designed for machine-readability and omit the number of services in the register parts, the date of required registration and condition percentage but add fields for level (manager, etc) and subsector (adult day care, etc). A time series of all CSV snapshots is included for convenience. The next dataset will be available in Early April 2025.
In addition to the overall registration data published above. We were also asked to provide more detailed data on the Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) workforce to support the expansion of early learning and childcare services in 2020. The ELC workforce are a subset of the Day Care of Children (DCC) workforce and provide publicly funded services to pre-school children. The latest data was extracted from the SSSC Register on 30th September 2024. The next data set will be available by early April 2025.
You can download the Early Learning and Childcare detailed data here.
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