When I speak to care home managers, the same question keeps coming up: what does a new care assistant actually cost us? The hourly rate is only the start. Once you add National Insurance, pension, holiday cover and the time it takes to recruit, the real figure is a lot higher than most budgets allow for.
In this article I break down the numbers for 2026, so you can plan your staffing budget with your eyes open.
Start with the wage
From 1 April 2026, the National Living Wage rose to £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over. That's the legal minimum, and in practice many care providers pay more than this to compete for staff, especially in London and the South East.
For a full-time care assistant working 37.5 hours a week at £12.71, the basic salary comes to about £24,785 a year.
Then add the employer costs
The salary isn't what you pay. On top of it you have:
- Employer National Insurance: 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year. At £24,785, that's roughly £2,970.
- Workplace pension: at least 3% employer contribution on qualifying earnings (between £6,240 and £50,270). That's roughly £560.
So one full-time care assistant on the National Living Wage costs you around £28,300 a year before anything else. If you pay above the minimum, scale that up accordingly.
A quick rule of thumb: budget for at least 14% on top of the salary for NI and pension alone.
Holiday cover is a hidden cost
Every full-time worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. Their pay is already in the salary above, but in a care home the shift still needs covering while they're away.
Covering 5.6 weeks at the same rate adds roughly £2,670 per full-time post. If that cover comes from agency staff at a higher hourly charge rate, the true cost is higher still. This is one of the main reasons agency spend creeps up across the year.
The cost of recruiting itself
Before anyone starts, there are the costs of finding them:
- Advertising: paid job board listings, or sponsored adverts to get seen.
- Your time: reading CVs, chasing candidates who don't reply, and candidates who don't turn up to interviews. For a registered manager, those hours come straight out of running the home.
- Checks: an enhanced DBS check, references and right to work checks.
- Induction and training: shadow shifts, the Care Certificate and mandatory training, during which the new starter isn't yet working as a full member of the rota.
None of these appear on a payslip, but they add up quickly, and you pay them again every time someone leaves.
Why turnover matters most
According to Skills for Care, the turnover rate in the independent adult social care sector was 24.7% in 2024/25. That means roughly one in four staff leave in a year.
Every time a care assistant leaves in their first few months, you lose the recruitment costs you've already paid, you pay them again, and you usually cover the gap with agency shifts in the meantime. A bad hire can easily cost you several thousand pounds once you add it all up.
This is why I believe the cheapest hire is not the one with the lowest fee. It's the one who stays.
Agency staff vs permanent hires
Temporary agency staff are useful in an emergency, but you pay a premium for every hour, and it never stops. A permanent hire through a recruitment agency works differently: you pay a one-off fee, usually a percentage of the first year's salary, and then the person is simply your employee.
If you're filling the same gap with agency shifts month after month, it's worth comparing a year of those shifts with the one-off cost of a permanent placement. In most cases, the permanent hire wins well within the year.
How to keep your hiring costs down
From what I've seen working with care providers, these make the biggest difference:
- Screen properly before interview. Most wasted time comes from interviewing people who were never right for the role.
- Hire for values and reliability, not just experience. Many great carers are graduates or career changers who haven't worked in care yet but have the right attitude.
- Move fast. Good candidates are often talking to several homes. If you take a week to reply, they're gone.
- Plan holiday cover early, so you're not paying last-minute agency rates in August and December.
- Look after new starters in their first 12 weeks. That's when most early leavers decide to go.
How we can help
At Bridge Gap Recruitment, we find and screen candidates for Care Assistant, Support Worker and Care Coordinator roles, so you only meet people who genuinely fit the role. Many of our candidates are graduates who want a career in health and social care, not just a job.
If you're spending too much time or money filling shifts, tell us about your role and I'll come back to you personally.
Figures are for England, based on the rates in force from April 2026. They're a guide for budgeting, not financial advice, so check the latest rates with your payroll provider.