Social worker salaries: are permanent staff now better off than agency?
If you look at the maps which accompany this article it seems that many of the areas with the lowest wages are rural. It tells us:
Amid ongoing controversy over a tax crackdown on independent contractors working in the public sector, the earnings gap between agency social workers and permanent staff is tightening, a Community Care investigation reveals.
For years, the hourly rates and potential for high take-home pay available to locums employed via recruitment agencies has been a significant attraction to social workers looking for an alternative to full-time local authority employment, and the appeal hasn’t vanished.
Responses from 107 councils to a Community Care freedom of information (FOI) request shows that in a handful of English local authority areas experienced qualified social workers can still command more than £35 per hour. That equates to a nominal annual pre-tax pay of at least £62,100.
By contrast, the highest basic top-line salary provided to us for a similar staffer was just over £45,000, in London’s Westminster. Across most of the country, such a social worker could expect to earn much less, between £33,000 and £37,000, before tax.
But such comparisons do not tell the whole story. The investigation, which aimed to ‘price up’ different social work grades and uncover how much temporary and permanent workers cost councils, also shows the extent to which regional caps have driven down agency rates in many areas.
Combine this picture with HMRC’s tax changes last April to off-payroll working rules – so called IR35 legislation – and it’s easy to see why there’s talk of agency workers, who mostly receive no sick or holiday pay, moving back into permanent employment.
This first of a two-part report based on our FOI research, looks at what permanent and temporary social workers can earn in different regions – and what, in the post-IR35 landscape, they might take home.