Care worker turnover was 15.3% among workers with five positive employment and development factors, compared with 34.3% among those with none, according to the 2025/26 workforce findings published in October. Care England’s response highlighted the comparison from Skills for Care’s annual report for England.
The factors cover competitive local pay, guaranteed hours, full-time employment, training and relevant qualifications. The comparison describes an association across groups of workers. It cannot tell a provider how much turnover would change after introducing any one measure. Full-time employment is also one characteristic in the analysis, rather than a reason to remove part-time options that staff value.
Start with the conditions staff actually experience
Review departures alongside the first three months of employment. Ask whether the hours described at recruitment matched the hours staff received. Look at who had protected time for induction and how long new starters waited for their first discussion with a manager. Separate issues that local managers can change, such as a missed induction review, from those requiring a decision about contracts or pay.
Choose one gap with a clear owner and a review date. For example, compare the shifts offered at recruitment with actual rotas for a cohort of new starters. Use the findings in supervision and recruitment conversations. In a small service, use counts and examples alongside percentages so that one resignation does not dominate the interpretation.
Compare with similar services
Skills for Care publishes a turnover dashboard and separate workforce summaries for home-based care, care homes without nursing and care homes with nursing. Its regional online briefing is listed for 5 November 2026, from 10:00 to 12:00. The service-level summaries can help managers choose a benchmark that reflects how their own teams work.
Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
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