Why the Adult Social Care Workforce Strategy’s 80% qualification target is mathematically impossible

The adult social care sector cannot possibly achieve the national ASC Workforce Strategy’s 80% qualification target for ‘new direct care staff’ without a fundamental, multi-million-pound overhaul of funding mechanisms, which must dramatically scale up the annual training capacity by a factor of 10 to 20 times the current rate, and simultaneously address the crippling financial pressures of high staff turnover and lack of backfill funding.

Introduction: Good Ambition Meets Hard Reality

Anyone working in adult social care understands that the sector’s greatest asset is its people. That is why the national ASC Workforce Strategy sets out a clear and important ambition: 80% of new direct care staff should achieve the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification within five years (Launch date: July 24). The Strategy also calls for 80% of all direct care staff to be ‘competent’ to Level 3 within their first three years in role, representing an altogether different target.

This ambition is right. Qualifications bring confidence, professional recognition, and, most importantly, protect people receiving care by raising standards.

But wanting it, is not the same as being able to train for it. As we examine the current state of training delivery – specifically, apprenticeship achievements and the new Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate completions – and factor in the massive scale of workforce churn and projected growth, the ambition becomes mathematically impossible under current conditions.

This thought-piece sets out the numbers behind that conclusion. We need to be honest: the gap between the aspiration and the sector’s current delivery capacity is simply too large for incremental changes to bridge.

The Context: A Workforce Under Relentless Pressure

To understand the qualification challenge, we must first look at the workforce environment:

• Growth in Demand: The adult social care workforce is not static. Demand for social care is increasing, requiring an estimated 470,000 extra posts by 2040 just to keep pace with rising need (a 27% increase from the 2024/25 baseline of 1.71 million total posts). This workforce growth makes the qualification target harder every year.
• High Turnover and Constant Churn: The annual turnover rate in 2024/25 was 23.1%, equivalent to approximately 335,000 leavers over the year. With a starter rate of 27.2%, this equates to approximately 360,000 new starters annually in the local authority and independent sectors. This high churn constantly wipes out any qualification gains.
• Rising Complexity: Future care models are not getting easier. Announcements and initiatives across the sector highlight an increasing need for more specialist skills, digital capability, and clinical delegation, requiring more formal, regulated training, not less.

These pressures mean the sector requires training delivery to be running at full national capacity just to maintain the status quo – but the capacity is failing, with training providers continuing to exit the market as witnessed by the recent Acacia Training insolvency.

The Qualification Requirement: A Massive Throughput Gap

The ASC Workforce Strategy is not asking for informal competence; nor employer-signed competencies or non-assessed workplace learning. They are talking about a regulated, formally assessed qualification and it is mandating a qualification outcome: the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification.

To reach our conclusion, we model the required annual training volume based on two scenarios:

Scenario A: The Full Strategic Requirement

With approximately 360,000 people starting new direct care roles each year, and the Strategy demanding that 80% of them achieve the qualification within five years, the system, over time, must be processing enough completions to meet that flow.

• The required steady-state delivery volume is around 288,000 qualifications per year (80% of 360,000).

Scenario B: The Conservative (True Entrant) Requirement

Even if you take the most conservative interpretation – that only true new entrants to the sector need to qualify – the annual requirement is still massive. Current data shows that 47% of recruitment comes from outside adult social care, representing approximately 169,200 true new entrants per year.

• The required volume is still 135,360 qualifications per year (80% of 169,200).

The Delivery Reality: Current Capacity is Critically Low and Declining

Compare those required numbers (135,360 – 288,000 per year) with what the current system actually delivers in Level 2+ qualifications:

1. Apprenticeship Achievements are Low and Declining: In 2023/24, there were approximately 23,420 apprenticeship starts in adult social care, representing a 5% decrease from 2022/23 and a 31% reduction since 2020/21. More critically, the achievement rate was only 38.7% in 2022/23 (compared to 54.6% across all apprenticeships). This means actual completions are only around 9,400 per year across all levels.
2. The Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate capacity has been severely handicapped: The new Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate was intended to be a major engine for the 80% target. However, following the removal of substantial national funding support (£53.9m), completion rates have only reached about 4,000 in 2024/25 (YTD Oct 25).

Therefore, the total current capacity for new, formally qualified staff entering or upskilled within the workforce is only about 13,400 qualifications per year.

The gap is stark: the system is delivering roughly 10 to 21 times less than what the Strategy requires, depending on the interpretation.

The Current Qualification Crisis: Already Declining

The crisis is not just about future targets – the sector is already moving backwards:

• In 2024/25, only 45% of the adult social care workforce (excluding regulated professions) held a relevant social care qualification, while 55% had no qualification recorded.
• Among care workers specifically, only 38% held a Level 2 qualification or above – representing a 10 percentage point decline from 48% in 2018/19.
• For direct care staff, only 36% were qualified at Level 2 or Level 3.
• Analysis shows that approximately 54% of the direct care workforce did not hold a relevant social care qualification in 2024/25. Of those without qualifications, only 69% had engaged with the Care Certificate standards, meaning nearly one-third had neither a qualification nor basic induction standards completed.

This means the sector is not just failing to reach the 80% target – it is actively losing ground, with qualification rates declining year-on-year despite existing training efforts.

Why Funding and Delivery Must Change

The enormous shortfall is not a failure of will, but a failure of system design and adequate funding. Without significant fundamental change, the sector cannot possibly meet its target. No tinkering around the edges will suffice.

The Funding Failure: Unsustainable Delivery

The ability to train staff at scale is directly linked to sustainable funding:

• Low Funding Rates: Apprenticeship funding rates remain inadequate, which risks poor-quality or unsustainable delivery by training providers. We have already seen many training providers exit the market for this reason, with the number of apprenticeship starts declining by 31% between 2020/21 and 2023/24.
• The Backfill Barrier: Not all employers, especially domiciliary care providers (who employ 46% of the workforce), can easily accommodate the requirement for apprentices to spend 20% of normal working hours on off-the-job training. The absence of backfill funding creates immense pressure. With 35% of domiciliary care workers on zero-hours contracts (and 42% of care workers in domiciliary services), the flexibility required for training becomes even more challenging. It’s not yet entirely clear what impact Labour’s Employment Rights Bill and Fair Pay Agreement will have on this already precarious situation.
• Removal of L2 Capacity: The dramatically reduced funding for the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate demonstrates what happens when national capacity is promised, but funding is removed. The resulting 4,000 completions is only a tiny fraction of what is needed.

The Delivery Failure: Wiping Out Gains

Even if funding were significantly increased, high turnover neutralises the effort:

• With the current system producing around 13,400 qualified staff per annum, the workforce actually needs to grow by approximately 29,400 posts per year (based on the 470,000 additional posts needed by 2040 divided over 16 years), therefore, we are adding more non-qualified posts than qualified ones.
• The turnover rate of 23.1% means that even when staff are qualified, approximately one-quarter leave each year, taking their qualifications with them. Among care workers specifically, the turnover rate is 28.5%.
• Critically, analysis shows that care workers with less than one year of experience have a turnover rate of 43.5%, dropping to 29.8% for those with 1-2 years. This means many workers leave before completing any qualification pathway.
• The system needs retention improvements so that qualifications “stick” in the sector. Current data shows workers with qualifications are more likely to stay: care workers with a relevant social care qualification had a turnover rate of 21.0% compared to 27.2% for those without.

The International Recruitment Impact: A Temporary Solution with Long-term Questions

The sector has increasingly relied on international recruitment to fill posts:

• Between March 2022 and March 2025, an estimated 225,000 people started direct care providing roles, having arrived from outside the UK (75,000 in 2022/23, 105,000 in 2023/24, and 50,000 in 2024/25).
• In 2024/25, approximately 24% of the workforce had a non-EU nationality, up from 9.2% in 2021/22.
• Among internationally recruited care workers on Health and Care Worker visas, 34% had qualifications (though many at Entry/Level 1), but a significant proportion require upskilling to meet UK standards.
• With restrictions introduced in July 2025 removing care workers from the Health and Care Worker visa route for new overseas recruits, this recruitment stream is likely to decline significantly, potentially exacerbating workforce and qualification challenges.
• Domestic recruitment remains in crisis: the number of filled posts held by British nationals has decreased by approximately 85,000 since 2020/21, demonstrating the sector’s inability to attract and retain UK workers.

The Economic and Demographic Realities

The financial pressures on the sector make workforce development even more challenging:

• The total wage bill was approximately £31.8 billion in 2024/25, an increase of 12.6% from 2023/24, largely driven by the 9.8% increase in the National Living Wage.
• The median care worker hourly rate in March 2025 was £12.00, just 56p above the National Living Wage of £11.44.
• With the April 2025 NLW increase to £12.21, an estimated 57% of all independent sector workers (approximately 765,000 filled posts) were paid less than the new rate, directly affecting training budgets as employers are forced to make tough financial choices.
• Increased National Insurance contributions from April 2025 (from 13.8% to 15.05%, with the threshold falling from £9,100 to £5,000) place additional financial pressure on employers.
• The population aged 65 and over is projected to grow from 11.5 million in 2025 to 14.5 million by 2040 – a 27% increase – directly driving demand for qualified care workers.

The Mathematics of Impossibility

Let us be clear about the scale of the challenge:

Current State:

• Total posts: 1.71 million (2024/25).
• Annual new starters: ~360,000.
• True new entrants: ~169,200.
• Current qualification delivery: ~13,400 per year.
• Current workforce qualification rate: 45% (declining).

Required State (Conservative Scenario):

• 80% of 169,200 true entrants = 135,360 qualifications per year.
• Gap: 121,960 additional qualifications per year needed.
• Scale-up required: 10x current capacity.

Required State (Full Strategic Requirement):

• 80% of 360,000 new starters = 288,000 qualifications per year
• Gap: 274,600 additional qualifications per year needed
• Scale-up required: 21x current capacity

Even with perfect retention, the mathematics are stark:

• To increase workforce qualification from 45% to 80% over 5 years requires approximately 560,000 additional qualified workers
• At current delivery rates of 13,400 per year, this would take 42 years – not 5
• With current turnover at 23.1%, many of those qualified would leave before the target is reached

Conclusion: A Call for Investment That Matches Ambition

The ambition of an 80% qualified workforce is commendable and necessary. However, the analysis shows that the ambition is currently like trying to fill a massive water reservoir using an eye-dropper while the demand for water is increasing and the reservoir is leaking.

The 2024/25 data demonstrates conclusively that:

1. The sector is moving backwards – qualification rates among care workers have fallen 10 percentage points since 2018/19.
2. Current capacity is inadequate – delivering 10 to 21 times less than required.
3. The crisis is accelerating – apprenticeship starts are down 31% since 2020/21, and the new Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate has not yet addressed the scale of the overall challenge.
4. Turnover is wiping out gains – even qualified staff leave at rates that negate training efforts.
5. Demographic pressure is intensifying – 470,000 additional posts needed by 2040.

If we are serious about achieving the 80% qualified target, we must move beyond incremental funding and acknowledge the true scale of the requirement:

1. Fund Delivery for Volume: Restore and dramatically expand national funding streams for Level 2 and 3 pathways, ensuring training systems are built for the required volume of over 135,000 qualifications per year (minimum).
2. Address Backfill Costs: Introduce funding mechanisms that compensate employers for the costs associated with off-the-job learning, especially critical for the 46% of the workforce in domiciliary care and the 35% of domiciliary care workers on zero-hours contracts.
3. Reform the Pipeline: Overhaul apprenticeship delivery to address the catastrophic 60% dropout rate and ensure suitability and sustainability, learning from the 38.7% achievement rate (vs 54.6% nationally).
4. Stabilise the Workforce: Address the root causes of the 23.1% turnover rate, including the fact that 57% of care workers earn within 56p of the minimum wage, making retention and career progression nearly impossible.
5. Replace International Recruitment Losses: Develop urgent strategies to replace the declining international recruitment capacity while simultaneously addressing the domestic recruitment crisis that has seen 85,000 fewer British workers since 2020/21.

The current system, characterised by low funding rates, severely constrained capacity, and workforce churn, ensures that the 80% target will remain permanently out of reach. The data from 2024/25 shows we are not failing slowly; we are actively losing ground.

This is a call for honesty, substantial investment, and system design that matches the scale of what is being asked. Without it, the 80% qualification target remains a well-intentioned aspiration with no pathway to delivery.