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The value of unpaid care and carers in the UK

  • Area of Work: Policy and Research
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 21st November 2024

Centre for Care and Carers UK publish research report on the value of unpaid carers in the UK.

New research from the Centre for Care, published in partnership with Carers UK, has found that the economic value of contributions made by unpaid carers in the UK is now £184 billion a year.

Using Census data and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (also known as ‘Understanding Society’), the Valuing Care report, builds on three separate reports that were part of the Centre for Care’s Valuing Carers series to estimate the cost of unpaid care.

This research report highlights the incredible increasing economic value of unpaid care across the four nations of the United Kingdom (UK). Unpaid carers in the UK are providing care worth an unbelievable £184.3 billion a year – an increase of 29.3% since 2011. In Scotland that number is a considerable £15.9 billion.

To put these extraordinary numbers into perspective, the combined NHS budget across all four nations of the UK was approximately £189 billion – this means that unpaid carers are providing care equivalent to the budget of a second NHS in the UK. This value of unpaid care is also over four times the amount of publicly funded spending on adult social care services. People are providing more hours of unpaid care than ever before, and the contributions made by unpaid carers have increased across all Local Authorities, Trusts and Councils in the UK.

This research demonstrates the vital contributions of unpaid caregivers across the UK, illustrating how they save the public purse substantial amounts of money every week, day, and hour throughout the year.

Read the full report here.

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