What is a domiciliary care worker?

The NHS guide to homecare says this type of care is known as homecare or domiciliary care, and sometimes as home help. So when an advert asks for a domiciliary carer, a home carer or a homecare worker, the work is the same: a series of visits to people in their own homes, each one built around what that person needs help with at that time of day.

A shift is usually a run of calls. You might help one person get up and washed at 8am, make breakfast and prompt medicines for a second, then go on to a third for a lunchtime visit. Some calls are short and some last several hours, and some clients need two carers at once for help with moving. Families reading about the same service from the other side can find it explained on our guide to domiciliary care, which is a useful way to see what a client and their family will expect from you.

If the titles still blur together, what is a home carer? covers the same role from the start, the different types of support worker sets out how the wider titles are used across the sector, and personal assistant work explains the job where the person you support is also your employer. If short spells of cover suit you better than a regular round, see respite carer jobs.

Personal care is the centre of the job. In law, personal care means physical help with eating or drinking, going to the toilet, washing or bathing, dressing, cleaning teeth, and the care of skin, hair and nails, or prompting and supervising somebody through those tasks when they cannot decide to do them alone. That second part matters with clients living with dementia, where talking someone through getting dressed, step by step, is the care rather than a shortcut around it. Alongside personal care come meals and drinks, light housework, shopping, collecting prescriptions, and company, which can matter as much as the rest of the visit to a client who lives alone.

Medicines need the most care. Reminding somebody to take their tablets is part of the everyday work. Giving them, such as popping tablets from a blister pack or applying a prescribed cream, should happen only when the care plan says so and you have been shown how, and you never change a dose or decide a medicine is not needed. Helping with medication as a carer sets out where the lines sit and what to record.

Some health tasks can be passed to a carer by a nurse, for one named person, once the nurse has trained you and written it into the plan. Delegated healthcare tasks explains how that works and what both sides are responsible for. Equipment is similar: using a hoist safely is a skill you are taught, and moving and handling for private clients covers what to agree before you use one.

The third group is work you should turn down even when asked kindly. If a client wants you to manage their bank account, sign for them, or accept a gift or a loan, say no and tell the family. Handling money for clients and professional boundaries explain how to say it without upsetting anyone. On PrimeCarers the contract between carer and client asks you not to take on work you feel unqualified to do, and to tell the client so other arrangements can be made.

The biggest practical difference is travel. Gov.uk's minimum wage guidance gives a care worker driving from one client to another as its example of travel time that counts as working time, so an employer has to make sure your pay across all your hours, including the driving between calls, comes to at least the minimum wage. The same guidance says travel from home to your first call generally does not count. Self-employed people running their own business are not covered by the minimum wage, so the rate you charge for the visits has to pay for the miles in between. Travel time and mileage for carers explains how to agree travel with a client and how to claim the cost against tax.

The second difference is choice. On a rota, the agency decides who you see and when, and also finds the work and covers your absences. Self-employed, a family chooses you from your profile and you choose whether to accept, which lets you keep a small group of regular clients near home. Nobody guarantees you a full week, and building one can take time. Self-employed or agency carer? works through one week of the same care both ways, with the tax, holiday and pension on each side, and do you need to drive to be a carer? covers working on foot, by bike or by bus.

The National Living Wage rose to £12.71 an hour on 1 April 2026 for workers aged 21 and over. Skills for Care, which publishes the workforce figures for adult social care in England, put median pay for care workers in the independent sector at £12.60 an hour as at December 2025, which was below the new minimum, so many employed domiciliary care workers are now paid at or close to it. What care workers are paid in the UK has the full set of employed pay figures with their sources, including how little pay rises with experience.

On PrimeCarers you set your own rate. Carers advertise £18 to £25 an hour for visits, and the figure a family sees already includes our fee, which is 20% on visits of under six hours. At £19.47 an hour, £15.58 reaches you. For comparison, home care agencies charge families around £28 to £35 an hour, and the care worker's wage comes out of that.

The hourly gap is smaller than it looks. Self-employed, nothing is deducted before you are paid, so Income Tax and National Insurance come out of what reaches you. There is no holiday pay, sick pay or employer pension contribution, and unpaid driving between clients lowers your earnings across the day. What carers earn on PrimeCarers sets out our commission on each kind of booking and works through a full week, and how much to charge as a self-employed carer helps you set a rate that covers all of it.

1. 1

   Choose your route in

   First

   Decide whether you want a job with a home care agency, self-employed work, or both. Some carers keep an employed job and take a few private clients alongside it while they see how the work builds up.
2. 2

   Have your ID and right to work ready

   Before you apply

   Every route checks who you are and that you can work in the UK. A passport is the usual document, and if your status is held online, such as a visa or settled status, you share it with a share code.
3. 3

   Get an enhanced DBS check

   Before your first visit

   An employer applies for it on your behalf. Since 21 January 2026, a self-employed carer can apply for their own through a registered DBS umbrella body. In Scotland the check is PVG, and in Northern Ireland it is Access NI.
4. 4

   Do the Care Certificate

   Recommended

   Skills for Care's Care Certificate sets out 16 standards for people new to care. It is not a qualification in itself, and employers usually build it into your induction. Self-employed, you can work through it yourself.
5. 5

   Apply, or register a profile

   When you are ready

   Apply to agencies near you, or register on PrimeCarers, complete an online interview and set your rate so families can find you.

The checks. An enhanced DBS check shows convictions and cautions, subject to the filtering rules, along with any information the police think relevant, and can include a check of the list of people barred from working with adults. You cannot apply for one entirely alone, so it goes through an employer or, since 21 January 2026, through an umbrella body if you are self-employed, as set out in gov.uk's guidance on DBS checks for self-employed people. Enhanced DBS and the Update Service explains the certificate and how to keep it current, and right to work checks for carers covers the documents in detail.

Before families can see your profile on PrimeCarers, we check your identity and your right to work, and that you hold an enhanced DBS check, or PVG in Scotland or Access NI in Northern Ireland, issued within the last 2 years. You also complete an online interview. We do not check qualifications, training or references. Your experience and training appear on your profile in your own words, references from past employers or families can appear there too, and none of it is verified by us, so keep certificates and referees ready for a family who asks. Separately from these checks, insurance arranged through PrimeCarers covers eligible visits booked and accepted through the platform, subject to the policy.

Training. The Care Certificate is Skills for Care's set of 16 standards for people new to care, updated in March 2025 to add awareness of learning disability and autism. It is a set of standards rather than a qualification, and Skills for Care has developed a separate Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate based on the same standards for people who want a formal qualification. After that, a Level 2 or Level 3 diploma in care is the next step. Training for private carers covers what each involves and where to study.

When you are ready to look for work, carer jobs near you lists what families are asking for now, and carer jobs by town shows the work in each area. If you want to work for yourself, you can register as a carer on PrimeCarers, set your own rate and decide which families to work with. Registering is free. Finding private clients explains what families look for in a profile.