Scottish Social Services Workforce Data
Publications
Our workforce data, information and intelligence publications are all available from this section of the web-site. Immediately below are quick links to our most recent publications. More detailed information on each publication can be found on our Detailed Data page
| Date | Publication | |
| Apr 25 | SSSC Register Leavers Survey Report | Here |
| Apr 25 | SSSC Have Your Say Survey | Here |
| Mar 25 | Workforce Skills Report 2025 | Here |
| Mar 25 | Staff vacancies in care services report 2023 | Here |
| Feb 25 | Economic and social value of the UK adult social care sector: Scotland | Here |
| Nov 24 | Analysis of diversity data and research report November 2024 | Here |
| Nov 24 | Social worker filled posts and vacancies six-monthly survey at June 2024 | Here |
| Oct 24 | Register annual report 2023 to 2024 | Here |
| Aug 24 | Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on 2023 Workforce Data | Here |
| Aug 24 | Mental Health Officers (Scotland) Report 2023 | Here |
| Apr 24 | Digital Capabilities within the Adult Social Care Workforce in Scotland | Here |
| Feb 24 | The Distribution of the Social Service Workforce Report | Here |
| Jan 24 | The Fitness to Practise report | Here |
| Oct 23 | Social worker filled posts and vacancies six-monthly survey | Here |
| Sep 23 | The 2022 Staff vacancies in care services report | Here |
| Sep 23 | Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on 2022 Workforce Data | Here |
| Sep 23 | Register annual report 2022 to 2023 | Here |
| Aug 23 | Mental Health Officers (Scotland) Report 2022 | Here |
| Jun 23 | Movement of Day Care of Children Staff Report | Here |
| Nov 22 | Staff vacancies in care services 2021 | Here |
| Quarterly | Registration and Early Learning and Childcare data | Here |
January 2025
Adults' services workforce tables 2023
These tables look in detail at the adults' services workforce in Scotland. They supplement data already published in the Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on 2023 Workforce Data.
April 2025
Leaver Survey
SSSC Leaver Survey Report 2025
The SSSC Register Leavers Survey Report gives an insight into leavers from the social work, social care and children and young people workforce.
It examines who is leaving the SSSC Register, why and where they are moving to. Real time data is now available on the Registration data Registration Dashboard
This report is based on data from 2,003 people who left the Register between August and December 2024. There was a clear relationship between age group and likelihood to respond to the survey, with older workers generally being more likely to respond than younger ones. We saw a similar pattern with the length of time that the leaver had been on the Register. Retirement, health and poor terms and conditions are the top reasons given for people leaving the Register.
This is the first collection of this data so the findings are preliminary until we have more to work with but we believe it is useful to publish the findings so far.
For any queries about this report then please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
SSSC Have your say survey
SSSC Have Your Say Workforce Wellbeing Survey 2025 report
Our first annual Have Your Say Workforce Wellbeing Survey report provides valuable insights from people working in the social work, social care and children and young people workforce on a wide range of topics, including wellbeing, pay, terms and conditions, support, access to training and qualifications and general experiences of working in the sector.
The findings will help us and key partners, including Scottish Government, to find out more about the experience of working in this field, as well as informing the development of national policies that have an impact on this sector and approaches on how best to support the workforce.
The survey was carried out on our behalf by Progressive Partnership from January to February 2025 and 6,581 registered and some non-registered workers responded.
For any queries about this report then please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
March 2025
Workforce Skills Report 2025
31 March 2025
The Workforce Skills Report 2025 looks at the current provision of qualifications for the adult social care, children's residential care and early years workforce, and demand for those qualifications. It also looks at barriers to undertaking qualifications.
Economic and social value of the UK adult social care sector: Scotland
The Scottish Social Services Council, as part of the UK wide Skills for Care and Development Alliance was the first organisation to commission research into the economic value of adult social care in Scotland and the UK with the last report published in 2018.
For this most recent project, Skills for Care and Development commissioned Alma Economics to analyse the adult social care sector’s economic and social value in the UK as a whole and in each of the four nations using data from 2022/23.
It’s used to inform the economic case for investment in the social care sector and its workforce in the UK as a whole (as well as having national breakdowns). It’s also used to inform policy making and national spending review decisions on investment.
The 2023 Staff vacancies in care services report
This Staff vacancies in care services 2023 report is jointly published by the Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC). This report provides data on vacancies reported by care services as at 31 December 2023. It presents data on the number of registered care services with a vacancy, the number of actual vacancies that services say they had using whole time equivalent (WTE) data, and data on the reasons why services have reported that vacancies are hard to fill.
