Professional Care Workers Week: 14th-18th September

As the Government promises a national care service, a call has gone out for care workers who, campaigners say, are still waiting for fair pay.

Professional Care Workers’ Week (14th to 18th September) puts the Fair Pay Agreement and the future of the workforce under the spotlight, as The Care Workers’ Charity says the Prime Minister’s promised National Care Service must be built around the people delivering care, not just the system around them.

This September, as Professional Care Workers’ Week (PCWW) returns for its ninth year, The Care Workers’ Charity (CWC) is building on the momentum of its spring campaign.

As Britain celebrates its carers, there is a call to ensure that the people paid to care are not forgotten with the aim to put England’s 1.6 million paid care workers back in the national conversation, at a moment when social care reform is higher up the political agenda than it has been for years.

In July, Prime Minister Andy Burnham used a speech on social care to commit to building a National Care Service and to bringing forward Baroness Casey’s review of adult social care by a year. He pledged to strengthen the workforce through better pay, training and career development, and pointed to the government’s Fair Pay Agreement process as part of that reform.

The first Fair Pay Agreement is not expected to take effect until 2028, and The CWC says care workers cannot wait that long to see the change reflected in their pay packets.

PCWW 2026 runs Monday 14th to Friday 18th September and brings frontline voices directly into the conversation.

The week features fifteen free virtual panels and webinars, open to anyone in the UK, including sessions on the Fair Pay Agreement and what it means in practice, the Care Workforce Pathway, migrant care workers’ rights, and financial security in retirement. Sessions run three times a day from 10am.

A full programme and free registration can be found here.

The picture The CWC set out in May has not changed. Adult social care in England has 131,000 vacancies. Four in ten care workers earn below the Real Living Wage, and more than one in three born outside the UK live in poverty. Care workers are more likely than the workforce as a whole to rely on food banks and Universal Credit, despite doing work that keeps some of the most vulnerable people in the country safe, washed, fed and alive.

Karolina Gerlich, Chief Executive of The Care Workers’ Charity, said: “We welcomed the Prime Minister’s commitment to a National Care Service, and to a workforce that is properly paid, trained and valued. But a promise is not the same as a pay rise, and care workers cannot be expected to wait until 2028 to feel the difference.

“Professional Care Workers’ Week is our chance, every year, to put the workforce at the centre of this conversation, in their own words. They are ready to tell their own stories, and I hope broadcasters will make room for them.”

The CWC is putting together a small group of care workers from across the UK who are willing and media-confident enough to speak to national and local broadcasters alongside Karolina, in person and by phone.

No physical filming locations are confirmed at this stage. The CWC will arrange suitable venues, including London, for TV interviews once broadcast interest is confirmed.

What The CWC is calling for

• A meaningful Fair Pay Agreement for adult social care, properly funded by central government and benchmarked to NHS Agenda for Change Band 3.
• An end to in-work poverty in the sector, with the Real Living Wage as a floor, not a ceiling.
• Recognition of care work as skilled work, with proper terms, conditions, training pathways and progression.
• Sustained investment in the workforce the entire social care system depends on.