UK could be up to one million unpaid carers short by 2050, research projects

Reform is about paid care. The projected gap is in unpaid care

The UK could be short of up to one million unpaid carers by 2050, according to research by Public First commissioned by Carers Trust (opens in a new tab). Public First projects that the gap could already reach 600,000 by 2035.

It lands while Baroness Casey runs a public 'Big Conversation' on the future of social care. It also comes just after the Prime Minister tied funding for a National Care Service to changes to the State Pension triple lock (opens in a new tab), a plan reported so far as covering free personal care for older people.

Unpaid carers support most people with care needs, Carers Trust argues, so reform built on paid care and how to fund it will not close this gap on its own. When carers can no longer cope, the need falls on other family members and then on home care and care homes. That puts the gap on the desk of commissioners and providers alike.

More people need care. Fewer are there to give it

The number of people needing care in the UK is projected to rise from 8.4m in 2025 to 10.3m by 2050, according to Public First's projections for Carers Trust (opens in a new tab). By 2050 the research estimates that 7.8 million unpaid carers will be needed, but only 6.7 million will be available if carers keep the profile they have today.

Put simply, the population is ageing. More people need care, while the generation that usually looks after them is barely growing.

The pressure is sharpest among the very oldest. Their number is set to nearly double by 2047, as the chart below shows.

That is why the gap arrives soon. Public First director Andrew Harrop put it on a ten-year clock: within that time, he said, the UK may need 600,000 more people able to provide care than will be in a position to do so.

Carers are already stretched, and more are projected to be in poverty

Many carers are at their limit now. Some 1.2m unpaid carers already provide care equivalent to a full-time job, according to the research.

For anyone also in paid work, that is a second job. Our reporting on people giving up paid work to care for a relative shows where that can end.

Money is tight too. Public First projects for Carers Trust (opens in a new tab) that 1.6m unpaid carers could be in poverty by 2035, rising to over 2m by 2050.

When a carer can no longer cope, the need does not go away. That makes support for carers part of keeping the local care market stable, and a matter for commissioners as much as for carers' charities. The early signs show up in how carers known to councils in England rate their ability to look after themselves.

Carers Trust chief executive Kirsty McHugh said reform "needs to focus on more than care home beds, budgets, and the paid workforce". She called for the system to recognise unpaid carers as essential rather than invisible.

One projection, from a charity with a case to make

These figures come from a single projection, which Carers Trust published with Public First (opens in a new tab). Carers Trust campaigns for unpaid carers, and the work is one scenario, not a settled forecast. Its 2050 supply figure rests on carers keeping the profile they have today.

The figures are UK-wide totals, with no breakdown for England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, so a commissioner cannot read off a local number. The direction is harder to wave away: more people needing care, and a generation of carers that is barely growing.

The Prime Minister wants to pay for his National Care Service by changing the State Pension triple lock. What has been reported so far covers free personal care for older people.

Nothing reported so far says who will do the caring that families do now. If the projection is close to right, who fills a gap that Public First projects could reach 600,000 within ten years?