Can Social Care Be Rebuilt Through a Fair Pay Agreement While Migration Is Restricted?
Nearly one million care workers are set to face major changes to pay and working conditions, alongside some of the strictest immigration rule changes in over a decade.
A Future On Hold
Imagine planning your future in another country with a promise that after 5 years you could achieve legal stability to live visa free to pursue your career and build a family, when suddenly government announces a plan that could potentially triple that time after you have already begun the process: “It was devastating because we were expecting, to get the permanent residency after a certain period.”
This is the reality of Ana, a 27-year-old migrant care worker in England. Her name has been changed to protect her identity.
“We don’t know what to do. There is nothing we can control."
Migrant care workers like Ana make up nearly a third of England’s adult social care workforce. Their future could be reshaped by government proposals set out in a 2025 immigration White Paper, which include extending the qualifying period for settlement and tightening visa rules.
Alongside these changes, ministers announced plans in September for a Fair Pay Agreement - a sector-wide deal intended to raise wages and improve conditions to attract more domestic workers. This followed July’s decision to close the overseas recruitment route for care workers.
While the reforms have been welcomed as a step towards stabilising the sector, critics argue they highlight a policy disconnect: efforts to improve pay and conditions sit alongside immigration changes that could make it harder for migrant workers to remain in the UK, despite their central role in the workforce - in a sector already grappling with 111,000 vacancies at a rate of 7% - roughly three times as high as the wider economy according to The King’s Fund.
Life Inside the Care System
For Ana, the pressures in the system are felt daily. She confesses that her job is “It's both physically and mentally exhausting”, as a care assistant for more than 4 years she told me that a usual work schedule includes 12 or even 14 hour shifts. She supports around 20 residents in a unit due to staff shortages.
One of the biggest challenges, she explains, is dealing with difficult behaviour from patients and not being taken seriously by employers, especially as an agency worker. In one instance, she was assigned to a patient with a history of aggression without being given a care plan - an individual's information about their health and social care needs as well as the specific daily support they require.
“They threw me under the bus”. She says.
Care plans are essential to providing quality care, but Ana says responsibility is often lacking. “Whatever happens is not their problem; instead of explaining to me what to expect or how to handle that situation, they were simply not bothered.”
Cyril Lobont, a researcher at the Nuffield Trust, a health and social care thinktank describes the care sector as “fragmented” consisting of “a workforce that is in general, poorly paid and not consistently skilled”. He says the fundamental problem is perception: care is not seen as a profession with long-term career prospects.
Picture by Cyril Lobont
Picture by Cyril Lobont
What is Breaking the Social Care Workforce?
These pressures facing the sector have been building for years. In 2022, during COVID, vacancies in social care reached 152,000. The Conservative government then decided to open a new health and social care visa route from overseas to supply the demand of workers.
Although this helped ease immediate shortages, it did not resolve the underlying problem. There are still around 111,000 vacancies in care- a rate of about 7%, compared with 2.3% across the wider economy. At the same time, the number of recent migrant workers entering the sector has fallen sharply, from 105,000 in 2023/24 to 44,000 in 2024/25, following tighter visa restrictions, adding further pressure to an already strained workforce. The Work Rights Centre predicts a further decline this year following the July decision in 2025 to close the overseas recruitment route for care workers.
Calvin Laverick is the Policy and Projects Officer at The Care Workers’ Charity, founded to provide financial relief to paid adult social carers.
Photo By Calvin Laverick.
Photo By Calvin Laverick.
He describes a system that responds to crises with short-term fixes rather than long-term reform: “It’s like putting a plaster rather than dealing with the structural issue that is underneath.”
Alongside funding and staffing pressures, both Laverick and his colleague Olivia Firth, Policy and Projects Manager of the charity, argue that recognition plays a key role. “We want to see a world where care workers are recognised as skilled,” Firth says. Laverick adds that the way care work is framed in political and public debate has shaped how it is valued: “The government gives a real set of conflicting impressions of the care work.”
This perception seems to directly affect recruitment and retention. Diana dos Santos, Business Engagement Executive at Croydon College, sees this reflected in students entering the sector through apprenticeships. “People are going for interviews and because there's a zero-hour contract and it's not fixed, some might say yes… but the reality is, would they stay? Probably not.”
She says many leave because the work is not valued in the long term: “Whilst you can cope with a bad situation for a short period of time, you can't cope with it for a long period of time.”
What Role Does Funding Play in the System?
“I think ultimately it comes down to money.”
Apart from the sector’s reputation and workforce shortages, another recurring theme is funding and financial structure. “I think ultimately it comes down to money,” explains Ben Gyles, creator of Urban Nest Property Solutions, a housing provider that refurbishes empty properties into supported and temporary accommodation for care.
He works directly within the commercial side of the system that contributes an estimated £77.8 billion to the UK economy. “It’s just a really lucrative business, the numbers that these care companies are getting paid is ridiculous.” Which he argues contributes to uneven resourcing and pressures within the workforce.
However, Ana says this economic scale is not reflected in workers’ pay. “We don't get paid a lot. It's really hard to survive on minimum wage.” She adds that she feels the financial value of the sector is not always reflected in how care workers are treated. “I think the government only sees the tax or the income contributed by care workers.”
What is the Fair Pay Agreement?
The Fair Pay Agreement will bring together care workers, employers and trade unions to negotiate pay and working conditions through a system known as collective bargaining. First outlined in September 2025, the proposal was followed by a public consultation, which closed in January 2026.
Since then, the government has begun setting out how the system will be implemented. A Fair Work Agency was established in April 2026, and ministers aim to finalise the design of the scheme by autumn this year, before introducing the necessary secondary legislation to formally create a negotiating body for adult social care.
The government has said it will help fund the reforms. In the 2025 Spending Review, £4 billion was allocated to social care, with £500 million earmarked to support improvements in pay. The remaining funding is expected to be distributed to local authorities to help cover the rising cost of care, with the first Fair Pay Agreement not expected to take effect until 2028.
Cyril Lobont researcher says the policy is designed to shift workforce dynamics. “In the government's ideal world, the fair pay agreement will be attractive enough that there's a huge domestic influx of staff because we've seen that the number of British born people working has been falling in recent years.” What Lobont is referring to is a 2.6% decrease in British care workers corresponding to 2024 and 2025.
Fair Pay Agreement Timeline
September 2025
Policy formally launched and government publishes consultation on the Fair Pay Agreement process.
January 2026
Consultation closed, public and sector's responses submitted to shape how the system will work.
April 2026
Wider reform begins: establishment of the Fair Work Agency under the Employment Rights Act.
October 2026
The government is expected to introduce regulations to formally create the negotiating body for adult social care.
2026-2027
System is built and secondary legislation finalises: how negotiations will work, who is included and enforcement mechanisms.
Autumn 2027
Negotiations begin: first round of negotiations between employers and trade unions / worker representatives.
2028
First Fair Pay Agreement takes effect.
Fair Pay Agreement Timeline
What is the 2025 Immigration White Paper?
The White Paper is a policy document outlining proposed changes to the UK’s immigration system, aimed at reducing net migration, which rose from 224,000 in 2019 to 906,000 in 2023. It does not itself change the law, but sets out reforms that are later implemented through updates to immigration rules.
Among the key proposals is extending the standard qualifying period for permanent residency from five to ten years. For low or medium-skilled workers which include those in social care, the baseline starting point would be 15 years.
While the Fair Pay Agreement aims to address staffing shortages by attracting more domestic workers into the sector, these migration rules could potentially worsen those shortages by making it harder for migrant care workers to remain in the UK.
The government has also indicated that the changes could apply to people already in the UK who have not yet secured indefinite leave to remain.
In a statement accompanying a consultation on “A Fairer Pathway To Settlement", Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “We propose to apply these changes to everyone in the country today who has not already received indefinite leave to remain.”
Shabana Mahmood KC MP, Secretary of State for the Home Department (Birmingham Ladywood, Labour). Copyright: ©House of Commons HMPPs Statement by Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.
Shabana Mahmood KC MP, Secretary of State for the Home Department (Birmingham Ladywood, Labour). Copyright: ©House of Commons HMPPs Statement by Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.
The White Paper also introduces the concept of “earned settlement”, with Mahmood adding that settling permanently in the UK “is not a right but a privilege”. The home secretary highlighted that it is important for migrants to contribute and pay back the country who has welcomed them.
The consultation also highlights a possibility for individuals to reduce their qualifying period if they have contributed significantly to the UK: “It should reward those who have demonstrated a commitment to contributing to their community through, for example, volunteering.”
The government confirmed that plans to extend the standard Indefinite Leave to Remain qualifying period are set to be implemented in Autumn 2026.
How the Two Policies Disconnect?
Rather than operating in isolation, these approaches interact within the same labour market, meaning changes to one directly affect the effectiveness of the other. Critics are questioning whether either approach alone can meet the rising demand which is projected to need around 470,000 additional posts by 2040 - an increase of 27% - driven by the growing population aged over 65.
Reports of exploitation linked to sponsorship have been rising in the care sector. In this audio, workers and experts describe how the system can leave some feeling trapped.
Some experts also warn that whilst the Fair Pay Agreement calls for better working conditions for carers, the White Paper could actually increase vulnerability within the system. Firth argues that, despite aiming to reduce exploitation, the proposals may have the opposite effect: “They said that they wanted to reduce modern-day slavery. But this is not the way to do it, you're actually heightening the risk.”
Ana experiences this first-hand: “We've got no choice”, she says, explaining that changing sponsors can be difficult because you need to have worked with them for at least three months: “Even if they treat you unfairly you have to just resist, you have to be patient and, deal with them because we really need to be here.” She worries that if settlement timelines are extended further, that period of dependency on employers would also lengthen.
The Fair Pay Agreement and the proposed White Paper sit side by side, but they are based on competing assumptions about how to address staffing shortages in social care. As Lobont puts it, the aim is to “rectify this issue by turning on domestic supply whilst they kind of switch off international supply”.
In practice, one policy seeks to make care work more attractive through higher pay and improved conditions, while the other tightens immigration routes that have supplied a significant share of the workforce potentially driving them away.
Neil Duncan-Jordan, Labour MP for Poole, has worked with social care policy for over 20 years and he warns that changing immigration rules mid-process can damage confidence among workers risking mistrust in the system: “The ones who are already here might think, I've had enough of this, I'm leaving and the ones that are yet to come over, might think, well, why would I go? they'll just change it. If they've done it before, they could do it again.”
Neil Duncan-Jordan MP (Poole, Labour)© House of Commons
Neil Duncan-Jordan MP (Poole, Labour)© House of Commons
Does the Fair Pay Agreement Solve the Problem?
At the centre of the Fair Pay Agreement is an attempt to address one of the sector’s most persistent issues: low pay and the perception that care work is undervalued. As Duncan-Jordan argues, “why would you want to go into that profession if you're paid minimum wage and no one respects you?” He sees the introduction of sectoral collective bargaining as a step towards improving both pay and status across the workforce.
Gyles suggests that ongoing staff shortages could push wages higher beyond government minimums, as providers compete to recruit and retain workers. “If you've got less workers and you need to bring one in, they're going to say, right, well, I want this much a year,” he says, arguing that market pressure alone could force employers to adapt.
Others see the reforms as an opportunity to improve training and long-term workforce development. Dos Santos believes changes to the system could help create a more qualified workforce over time, particularly through apprenticeships. “Every apprentice needs a mentor… so you almost create a chain,” she explains. “In a couple of years’ time, you'd probably end up with a workforce that is actually fully qualified.”
However, from a research perspective, Lobont argues there is little evidence to suggest similar policies have led to significant workforce transformation elsewhere. “They're essentially hedging their bets on that a lot,” he says.
He also warns that inconsistent policymaking - particularly when combined with changing migration rules - risks undermining long-term stability. “It just creates instability for the sector and it's very hard to strengthen it in the long term with a consistent vision.”
What Is the Future of the Care Sector?
Looking Ahead
Ana is now in the fourth year of a five-year pathway to settlement, but uncertainty continues to shape her future plans. “We were planning to have a baby after receiving Indefinite Leave to Remain,” she says. “But nothing is guaranteed… we feel hopeless.”
Her experience reflects wider concerns about the proposed immigration changes. Duncan-Jordan, who has been campaigning against the policy, describes it as “unfair” and “un-British”. “Somebody asked me the other day, are we going to win on this issue, this campaign?” he says. “My view is we can't afford not to. As a society, we can't afford not to win on this.”
Whether the Fair Pay Agreement will resolve the challenges facing social care remains unclear. For some, the issue goes beyond policy, pointing instead to how the work itself is valued. Laverick echoes this sentiment: “Despite all of these terrible pay problems, these issues with mileage, despite it being stressful and exhausting, everybody I've spoken to absolutely loves it - they adore the work that they do.”
As demand for care continues to rise, questions remain over whether the system can provide the stability its workforce - and those who depend on it - need. As Olivia Firth puts it, “You will interact with adult social care, whether you're working in it, or whether you or a loved one has to draw upon it.”
What happens next will shape not just the future of the workforce, but the care millions of people will come to rely on.
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