When a care worker leaves, the provider still has Monday morning’s visits to cover. The person waiting for help experiences that as a simple question: will someone reliable turn up?
That is where the debate about overseas care recruitment needs to begin.
Britain can reasonably aim to build a stronger domestic care workforce. Our view is that this requires a plan for retaining experienced staff, making care jobs attractive and helping suitable workers already here into lawful employment.
Restricting recruitment changes who an employer can hire. It does not, by itself, make a difficult vacancy easier to fill.
For care providers, the immediate task is to establish which staffing options are available and which are financially sustainable. The immigration rules apply across the UK; the workforce figures and care funding measures discussed here concern England.
What has changed for care worker sponsorship?
Since 22 July 2025, new overseas recruitment through sponsorship has closed for care workers and senior care workers under occupation codes 6135 and 6136. The remaining arrangements require an application for permission to stay from within the UK.
There are different provisions within those arrangements.
Under one provision, the applicant must have worked legally for the sponsoring employer in a relevant care occupation for at least the three months ending when the Certificate of Sponsorship is issued. The application must be made before 22 July 2028.
Existing Skilled Workers sponsored in the relevant care occupations have separate provisions for extending permission or changing sponsor. The three-month requirement should therefore not be presented as a condition every care worker must satisfy. Other eligibility and sponsorship requirements still apply.
For a provider, the starting questions are the worker’s current permission, employment history and proposed role. Being physically in the UK does not establish eligibility for sponsorship.
Nor does holding a sponsor licence establish that a particular candidate can start work on the date the business needs. Check that separately before making commitments.
Our guide to sponsor licences for care providers explains the wider framework.
What the latest workforce figures tell us
There is encouraging evidence. Skills for Care’s report published on 14 October 2026 estimates that England’s adult social care vacancy rate fell to 6.2% in 2025/26, with approximately 96,000 vacant posts. Filled posts increased by around 22,000.
Those improvements deserve recognition.
However, the same report estimates that posts filled by British nationals fell by around 40,000 over the year in the local authority and independent sectors. International recruitment also declined, from approximately 50,000 workers in 2024/25 to 30,000 in 2025/26.
These are estimates for 2025/26, not a live count of vacancies this autumn. They do not establish that overseas workers displaced British applicants. They also do not show that a reliable domestic recruitment pipeline has replaced overseas hiring.
Nationality, recruitment location and immigration status answer different questions. A non-British national may have lived locally for years and already have permission to work.
Our reading is that the headline vacancy improvement should encourage careful planning. Providers still need to understand their own vacancies, recruitment lead times and reasons people leave. A national average cannot show whether a particular service can safely accept another care package.
Retention starts with a job people can build a life around
A recruitment campaign is only part of a workforce strategy. The offer also has to make sense to someone comparing care with other work.
That means considering dependable earnings, manageable rotas, travel arrangements, supervision and a visible route to greater responsibility.
Skills for Care reports that experienced care and support workers in the independent sector earned, on average, only 12p more per hour than those with less than a year’s experience in March 2026. Its comparison defines experienced workers as those with at least five years’ experience.
That narrow reward for experience raises an obvious management question: what gives a capable worker a reason to stay and develop?
Pay matters, but providers should also ask what their staff find unnecessarily difficult. A rota published late, a poorly supported first month or a promotion with unclear expectations can undermine an otherwise credible offer.
We would start with recent leavers and unsuccessful applicants. Establish why they moved on or declined the job, then identify which problems the organisation can actually change.
The aim should be a role that people can sustain alongside their own lives. Flexibility works best when both the service and the worker understand what it means in practice.
The gap before England’s first fair pay agreement
The government’s published timetable puts England’s first adult social care fair pay agreement in April 2028, with negotiations expected to begin around April 2027. That remains a future implementation timetable, rather than an agreed pay award available to providers today.
The timing matters. Overseas recruitment for these care roles has already closed, while the first agreement is still ahead.
Our concern is the practical gap between those decisions. A provider planning next year’s staffing cannot treat a future settlement as money already available for wages.
Equally, policymakers should explain how improved employment conditions will be supported through commissioning and funding. Higher expectations need a credible route into the prices paid for care.
For providers, a sensible budget should distinguish current income from anticipated changes. Model what better pay or more predictable hours would cost, then identify which improvements can be funded now and which depend on revised contracts.
That creates a useful basis for discussions with commissioners. It also makes the consequences visible: how many hours can be delivered, what staffing level is affordable and where commitments would exceed capacity.
Making better use of the workforce already here
A stronger domestic workforce can include experienced international care workers who are already living in Britain.
Some have been affected by a sponsor losing its licence and need a suitable new role. Helping them move into responsible employment can preserve skills that the care system has already helped develop.
For 2026/27, the government has made up to £7.5 million available through 15 regional partnerships in England to help international care workers affected by sponsor licence revocations into new ethical employment. Funded delivery is due to finish by 31 March 2027.
For a provider with genuine vacancies, those partnerships may be a useful recruitment contact. Their involvement does not replace immigration checks or guarantee that an individual can take up the proposed job.
The employer still needs to understand the person’s permission, any sponsorship application required and the lawful start date.
Our view is that this should sit alongside local recruitment and retention work. Treating overseas nationality as a reason to overlook someone already available locally would confuse a workforce objective with a passport category.
Build the staffing plan around real work
Consider a hypothetical homecare provider considering recruitment after winning additional care packages.
Before approaching candidates, the provider should establish the funded hours, locations, travel requirements and continuity of work. It should then compare that demand with existing staff availability and likely departures.
Only then can it decide whether it needs new employees, different rotas or additional hours for staff who want them.
If the unmet demand is concentrated in evening visits across a wide area, travel and scheduling may matter as much as headcount. Recruiting someone for full-time hours without enough compatible work would create a different problem. In that example, the provider should test the rota against the promised hours before making an offer or assigning sponsorship.
Where sponsorship is being considered, the proposed duties and occupation code must fit the actual job. The Immigration Rules allow scrutiny of whether a less appropriate code has been selected to avoid restrictions. Changing a job title does not change the work underneath it.
The useful evidence is operational: contracts, a credible staffing requirement, an accurate role description and a salary the business can sustain.
Our recommendation is to bring the operations manager, payroll and the person responsible for sponsorship into the decision early. They need to agree what is being offered and who will keep the employment records accurate.
A Business Sponsor Licence belongs within that planning process. Before committing to sponsorship, the employer needs a clear view of the role, the candidate’s position and its own responsibilities.
Judge the change by whether care remains dependable
Reducing reliance on overseas recruitment can be a legitimate policy goal. Its success should be assessed alongside the availability and quality of care.
We would want to see more people choosing care, more experienced workers staying, fewer avoidable gaps in rotas and employment conditions that providers can afford to maintain.
For an individual care business, that means making a staffing decision from verified facts: the work available, the funding behind it, the people already employed and the candidates who can lawfully join.
That is how a national policy becomes a workable plan for Monday morning.
If you are considering care worker sponsorship or recruiting someone already in the UK, Request a Case Assessment to assess the proposed role, the worker’s circumstances and the immigration requirements relevant to your next step.
