Social Care and Health - Social Work: The Facts

There are approximately 1 million people working in social work and social care across the country. This is up to about 5% of the total UK workforce.

Qualified social workers are in demand. Everyone who wants a job in social work should find one when they finish qualifying – that’s more than 4,000 people a year.

A range of organisations - public sector, voluntary and private - employ social workers. They may work in:

• local authority social services departments
• education departments and special schools
• residential care homes, day centres, drop-in and community projects
• hospital trusts, hospices, health care teams or GP practices
• services provided by the voluntary and private sectors
• juvenile justice teams and projects
• housing associations.

Independent providers are the major employers of social carers, employing about two-thirds of the total.

The starting salary of a social worker is similar to that of a teacher, nurse or policeman – averaging a gross weekly pay of £408.50.

The social work sector is growing very quickly – at a rate of 3% per year – and will continue to grow as the demand for services increases.
 

Social workers care for many different groups within our society. Staff work in a wide range of settings which offer services for:

• children
• older people
• people with mental health problems

• people with physical or learning disabilities

• people with physical or learning disabilities

• those who experience homelessness,

• those whose lives are affected by HIV and AIDS, drugs and alcohol.

Some social workers work in youth and criminal justice services or in adoption and fostering.

The UK has the lowest incidence of child death through violence of any developed country in the world. Some experts partly attribute this to the work and interventions of social workers.

In the 1991 Census, 10% of the population of England and Wales had social or probation work qualifications. Some 80% of these were working in the profession at the time of the survey.

The required knowledge base for a social worker is considerable and includes.

• Legal rights and powers – affecting social workers and their employers, the rights of children and adults to confidentiality, privacy and protection from significant harm and abuse and the network of agencies who work together to protect and provide services for vulnerable children and adults.

• Social and economic conditions – affecting people’s capacity to cope with, for example, unemployment, poverty, healthcare and housing provision.

• Importance of ethnic background, culture, sexuality, gender, age and religion.

• Information about HIV/AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse.

• Theories on human psychology.

To qualify as a social worker, you need to obtain a diploma in social work (DipSW), which is a minimum of a two year full-time course. Effective from a diploma in social work (DipSW), which is a minimum of a two year full-time course. Effective from2002, you will need to do a three-year full time degree course.

Most courses expect that you have some prior experience of working with people in need in either a voluntary capacity or as paid work.

There are jobs within social care that do not require a social work qualification. To find out about available jobs visit the council's Job Shop.

In 1999-2000 approximately 4,157 students registered for a Diploma in Social Work.

Between 1995 and 1998 there was a fall from 11,526 to 6,600 in numbers of applicants to social work courses.

In 1998, the average age for applicants to social work programmes was 32 and 75% were over 25.

Who will need care in the future? 

• Population projections show the number of people aged over 75 will increase from 4.4 million now to 7.6 million by 2037.

• 1 million people are currently living with cancer. This figure is expected to rise to 2 million by 2020.

• There are approximately 25,000 people living with AIDS in England and Wales at the moment. This is expected to rise to approximately 29,000 at the end of 2003 – an increase of 40% on the prevalence in 1999.

• 1 in 7 people are currently experiencing mental health problems. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), by 2020 depression will be the second leading cause of disease burden worldwide.

• There are currently around 30,300 children on the child protection register in England alone.

Other Facts 

• Overall 84% of the workforce in local authority social services departments in 1999 was female, with the proportion rising to 97% among domiciliary care staff, and the proportion of male staff did not exceed 27% in any of these categories.

• The proportion of qualified men working in social services decreases with increasing age, but for women it declines around child-bearing age but then increases, to exceed that for men, indicating that women tend to return to work when their children are old enough.

Further Information