Children's Social Work Workforce in England

This release provides information about children and family social workers and agency social workers employed in local authorities.

The information is based on data collected in an annual census of local authorities in England. The latest collection covers the year from 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2022.

Children and family social workers are social workers registered with Social Work England (SWE) working in a local authority in a children’s services department or, if working in an authority where the services are joined up, a social worker that works primarily on children and families work. Figures are shown on both a full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount basis.

The timeseries in this release features data from 2017 onwards, which is when information on individual social workers was first collected by the Department for Education (DfE). Refer to the ‘Background and coverage’ section of the methodology page for more information.