Explore Careers
Are you looking to get into a career in health and care and want to explore the hundreds of roles and entry routes available to you? Then look no further!
Find useful information on the many and varied career options in this section and explore useful links that will help you decide what’s the right career for you. Whether you want to work in a clinical setting or managerial role the options are endless.
Click on the job role to find out more about careers in the NHS and Social Care.
Job Roles
Choose your role...
Social Care
Social care is about supporting people to maintain their independence, dignity and control. This includes providing personal and practical support to help people live their lives.
Social care workers could be supporting someone with a range of disabilities, dementia or mental health conditions. They could be working in a care home, in the local community or from someone’s home.
Why Choose Social Care?
A career in social care offers long-term employment prospects, with opportunity for promotion and progression as well as job security.
Adult social care is one of the few sectors where jobs are increasing, offering significant numbers of long-term career opportunities in the current job market. There’s an estimated 1.49 million people working in social care, and by 2035 we’ll need to fill around 580,000 more jobs.
Somewhere in your community there’s a job that you can do to help others. If you like working with people, social care offers a worthwhile job that can turn into a rewarding, long-term career.
There are lots of different roles in social care depending on what you want to do, who you want to work with and where you’d like to work.
Direct Care Roles
These roles involve directly working with people who need care and support and include Activity Workers, Care Workers and Rehabilitation Workers.
Management Roles
These roles involve having managerial responsibility of people and include being a Team Leader of care workers or Specialist Co-ordinator who specialise in a particular field and have the responsibly to ensure staff are trained.
Support Roles
These roles involve supporting qualified professionals such as Housing support officers or Social care prescribers who focus on improving wellbeing.
Professional Roles
These roles are registered with a regulated body and require a qualification such as a degree or equivalent. They may range from being a Social worker, Nurse in a care home or a Counsellor.
Ancillary Roles
These roles do not often have direct patient care but are jobs that are crucial for the delivery of a service such as a Cook, Housekeeper or Driver.
To find out more about any of these roles please click www.skillsforcare.org.uk (opens in a new window)
For further general information about careers in this sector and useful resources please follow this link www.skillsforcare.org.uk (opens in a new window)
Case Studies
Jane is a Social worker here is her story
Download Case Study (PDF) (opens in a new window)
Darren is a Mental Health Support Worker here his story
Download Case Study (PDF) (opens in a new window)
Anne is a Home Care Manager here her story
Download Case Study (PDF) (opens in a new window)
Primary Care
To find out more about the vast array of roles in Primary Care please click here
