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Care Workers and Home Carers

Care workers and home carers attend to the personal needs and comforts of children, the elderly, the infirm and others with care and support needs (‘service users’) within residential care establishments, day care establishments or in their own homes.

Wages

New workers
AVERAGE
Experienced
£6,154
£17,445
£29,980

New workers start around £6,154. Normal pay is £17,445 per year.
Highly experienced workers can earn up to £29,980.

Available jobs

In the past year there were 790,861 vacancies for this type of job

2.37%

Projected job growth over the next 8 years

Related courses

People work towards these careers by taking these courses at college and uni.

What they do most days?

  • Liaises with professional staff in carrying out care plans etc..

  • Monitors service users’ conditions by taking temperature, pulse, respiration and weight, and contributes to record keeping.

  • Undertakes light cleaning and domestic duties including meal preparation as required.

  • Helps with daily activities such as letter writing, paying bills, collecting benefits.

  • Provides interest and activities to stimulate and engage the service user.

  • Assists with service users’ overall comfort and wellbeing.

  • Serves meals to service users at table or in bed, and assists with feeding if required.

  • Assists and enables service users to dress, undress, wash, use the toilet and bathe.

Hard Skills

Hard skills are specific, learnable, measurable, often industry or occupation-specific abilities related to a position.

Skills are ranked based on the number of job adverts that list them as required skills.

  • Personal Care

  • Companionship

  • Medication Administration

  • Meal Planning And Preparation

  • Cooking

  • Home Health Care

  • Toileting

  • Learning Disabilities

  • Mental Health

  • Housekeeping

Soft Skills

Soft skills can be self-taught and usually do not necessitate a certain completed level of education.

Skills are ranked based on the number of job adverts that list them as required skills.

  • Communication

  • Compassion

  • Management

  • Empathy

  • English Language

  • Interpersonal Communications

  • Planning

  • Patience

  • Teamwork

  • Record Keeping

How do I get a job like this?

People in these types of job started their career paths after studying courses like the ones below.