Social Care Recruitment

The government has launched a formal review of the children’s home workforce in England, and if you work in children’s residential care, whether as a support worker, deputy manager, or registered manager, this one matters.

Here’s what we know, what’s being looked at, and what it could mean for your career.

The Department for Education has appointed Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, founder and director of the Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust, to lead a review into the skills, training, and qualifications required of staff and registered managers working in children’s homes.

The review is due to report by September 2026.

It sits within a broader government push to reshape the children’s residential sector. A minister recently stated that residential care should be used for “far fewer children, and only where it best meets their needs”, signalling a shift toward smaller, more specialist, and more therapeutic provision rather than a large-scale, generalist model.

The review’s terms of reference cover six themes, including:

• The knowledge and skills required of registered managers and frontline staff to meet the purpose of children’s homes
• Whether current training and qualifications are fit for purpose
• Whether oversight and regulation of children’s homes and training providers is effectively supporting a skilled workforce
• How to build clearer professional development pathways for residential staff

This means the review is asking whether the people working in children’s homes, at every level, have the right foundations, and whether the system around them is set up to help them develop.

Registered managers sit at the heart of this debate. They are responsible for the quality of care, compliance with Ofsted, staff development, and the culture of the home, and yet the role has historically lacked a clearly defined, sector-wide professional framework.

The review could result in new mandatory qualifications or training requirements for RMs, updated expectations around CPD, and changes to how Ofsted assesses leadership quality within homes.

If you are currently a registered manager, or working toward the role, it is worth keeping a close eye on the findings when they are published in September. The direction of travel from government is clear: a smaller, higher-quality residential sector means higher expectations of the people leading it.

The review also looks at frontline staff. If the sector moves toward a more specialist and therapeutic model, which the government’s language strongly suggests, then the value of staff with specific qualifications, trauma-informed training, and experience in targeted settings is likely to increase.

For anyone currently working as a support worker or senior support worker in children’s residential, this is a good moment to be thinking about your professional development. What training have you completed? What experience can you evidence? Those questions will matter more, not less, in the years ahead.

The children’s home sector employed an estimated 46,000 people in England in 2024, up significantly from the year before. Demand for experienced, qualified staff, particularly registered managers and deputy managers, remains high, and SCR is placing candidates into these roles across the country right now.

We work with providers ranging from small independent homes to larger national operators, and what they consistently tell us is that quality of leadership is the single biggest factor in the success of a home. The government’s review reflects that reality.

We here at SCR will keep a close eye on the findings and aim to offer support to all the Registered Managers, Responsible Individuals, Deputies and Support Workers we work with.

If you want to work with us reach our here, or if you are looking for a new position, please get in touch here.

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Tags: Gov Policy, Social Care Recruitment