Carer Salary Report 2022 – How top carers can earn £40k/yr+!

Our goal is to see carers paid as much as possible, to improve the lives of our chronically underpaid carers across the UK. Over the last 12 months, carer pay has risen significantly, with live-in carers earning £40,000+ per annum, with the average carer earning £35,000+ per annum, and hourly carers earning up £20ph with an average of £13.90ph. Let’s look at our carer salaries over 2021 in our first ever carer salary report.

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Live-in Care Salaries

We provide both hourly and live-in care at PrimeCarers, but it’s much easier to understand the impact of live-in care due to the flexible nature of hourly care. Our average take-home (after fees) rate for live-in carers over the last 12 months was:

£127.71/day

In a 40 week working year, this is a take-home pay of £35,280/yr on average. That figure puts the average live-in carer on PrimeCarers solidly above the median household salary of £31,461/yr, which might sound quite good; however, there are a few factors that we should consider:

1. Carers are self-employed and work is unreliable and can change at short notice
2. Live-in carers can spend weeks at a time away from their families on placements
3. A live-in carer is on-call for 22 hours a day providing care for a person
4. A live-in carer incurrs the costs of travelling to and from placements

Hourly Care Salaries

Long Shifts (6 hours or more): £12.99/hr

Short Shifts (Less than 6 hours): £13.90/hr

When we look at the real living wage for London of £11.05, we’ve been able to beat it by 17.5% for long shifts and 25% for shorter shifts. Beating the real living wage is important because it gives carers the buffer they need for the intermittent nature of care work and the cost of travelling between jobs.

Top Earner

We have several carers earning over £40,000 a year on PrimeCarers, with our top carer taking home just over £44,000 in 2021.

Carers can earn higher salaries in a variety of ways:

• By taking less breaks – Most live-in carers opt for a 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off or 3 weeks on 1 week off arrangement, but carers can earn more for longer placements or by work 5-6 days a week.
• By working complex jobs – Some clients are willing to pay higher rates for carers with more specialist skills or that are looking after a couple.

Strategies to earn more

There are a few things you can do to make yourself worth more:

1. Training: Get yourself up to date with the latest certificates and training. See here for details.
2. Learn how to handle difficult patients and clients: This one is huge, if you can keep your cool, diffuse and de-escalate situations effectively, then you will be worth your weight in gold.
3. Be reliable: If you can prove that you will always show up, rain or shine, client will stay with you and will even accept wage increases.
4. Dress the part: Wearing appropriate clothing is also important, clients probably won’t mention it, they will just get rid of you.
5. Have great professional photos: You will get more opportunities on PrimeCarers and other platforms, by having great professional photos.
6. Be flexible: Being available for client, when they need you, is incredibly valuable to clients. So, make sure they know what flexibility you have to assist them beyond your regular hours.

Conclusion

These numbers show how introductory agencies can help bridge the funding gap between private payers and carers. By being lean and efficient, we can provide the essential agency services without the associated cost, making caring fairer and more practical for everybody. We genuinely believe that introductory services will come to fill a significant gap in the market, and this first carer salary report is an excellent step towards our goals.

If you are thinking about taking control of your pay and hours by becoming a private carer, head to https://primecarers.co.uk/carer and sign up with PrimeCarers!