Fixing the children’s social care market: The changing nature of demand for care placements

Between 2010 and 2025, the number of children in care across England rose from 64,000 to 82,000, or from 57 to 67 children in every 10,000. ³¹ Department for Education, ‘Children looked after in England including adoptions’, GOV.UK, 26 November 2025, retrieved 23 January 2026, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2025; Department for Education, ‘Children looked after in England including adoption: 2009 to 2010’, GOV.UK, 30 September 2010, retrieved 27 January 2026, www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-by-local-authorities-in-england-year-ending-31-march-2010  This means that around three children in every school in England are now in care, on average.^{*, 2} Department for Education, ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’, GOV.UK, 5 June 2025, retrieved 27 January 2026, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics/2024-25

_{*    Calculated by dividing the total number of children in care in England in March 2025 by the total number of schools in the 2024–25 academic year. This is used to illustrate scale rather than provide a precise estimate, as it assumes an even distribution of children in care across schools.}

_{**    Throughout this report, the terms ‘child’ or ‘children’ include young people aged up to and including 17 years of age.}

_{***  A further 3% of children in care are recorded in the ‘other placements’ category. These percentages do not sum to 100% due to rounding.}

_{**** The Department for Education’s 2024 data release split data on children’s homes and data on supported accommodation for the first time, and provides this split back to 2020. But to analyse data in time series longer than that, the less granular categorisation must be used.}

Around a fifth of this increase reflects rising numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) – children who have arrived in the UK without a parent or other responsible adult and who have applied for asylum alone. Their numbers rose sharply after 2014 as the global refugee crisis intensified, and again after March 2021 as borders reopened after the Covid pandemic. There are now 6,500 UASC in England’s care system, making up 8% of children in care, up from 5% in 2010. ⁶ Department for Education, ‘Children looked after in England including adoptions’, GOV.UK, 26 November 2025, retrieved 23 January 2026, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2025

Because UASC tend to live in different types of placement, this shift has likely had material consequences for the demand for those placements. UASC are six times more likely to live in supported accommodation than the average child in care, 12 times less likely to live in a children’s home and just under two times less likely to be in foster care.

While this pattern of placements likely reflects the older age profile of UASC – 90% are aged 16 or over, compared to 22% of other children in care ⁷ Department for Education, ‘Children looked after in England including adoptions’, GOV.UK, 26 November 2025, retrieved 23 January 2026, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2025  – it may be reinforced by an ‘adultification’ bias, whereby UASC are treated as older than they actually are. ⁸ Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, Reform of Children’s Social Care, 2023, www.slr-a.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Reform-of-Childrens-Social-Care-Making-childrens-social-care-reform-work-for-children-subject-to-immigrat…  This risks steering UASC away from family-based placements such as foster care, even though some evidence suggests they have better outcomes there. ⁹ O’Higgins A, Ott EM and Shea MW, ‘What is the impact of placement type on educational and health outcomes of unaccompanied refugee minors? A systematic review of the evidence’, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 2018, vol. 21, pp. 354–65, retrieved 10 April 2026, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-018-0256-7

As the dashed line in Figure 1 shows, the rise in UASC does not explain most of the growth in the rate of children in care. Excluding UASC, the rate has still increased by 14% since 2010, to 62 children in every 10,000. This is partly because there are now fewer exits from care, as adoptions and family reunifications have become less common. ³⁸ Fitzsimons P, James D, Shaw S and Newcombe B, Drivers of Activity in Children’s Social Care, Department for Education, 2022, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62961ec9d3bf7f036ddfe7ce/Drivers_of_Activity_in_Children_s_Social_Care.pdf  It may also reflect wider pressures, including:

• rising child poverty
• cuts to universal, preventative services and benefits ¹² Hoddinott S, Davies N and Kim D, A Preventative Approach to Public Services, Institute for Government, 2024, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-05/preventative-approach-public-services_0.pdf; MacAlister J, The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care: Final report, GOV.UK, 2022, https:// webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20230308122535mp_/https://Childrenssocialcare.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/The-independent-review-of-childrens-social-care-Final-report.pdf
• increases – real or perceived – in children’s exposure to extra-familial harms ¹³ Association of Directors of Children’s Services, ADCS Safeguarding Pressures Research – Phase 9, 2025, www.adcs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ADCS_Safeguarding_Pressures_Phase9_FINALv1.pdf
• greater risk aversion in social care. ¹⁴ House of Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, Funding of Local Authorities’ Children’s Services: Fourteenth report of session 2017–19, HC 1638, The Stationery Office, 2019, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcomloc/1638/1638.pdf

As well as becoming more numerous, many local authorities report that children in care have increasingly complex needs.^{*, 15} Dellar A, Performance Tracker 2025, ‘Children’s social care’, Institute for Government, 15 October 2025, retrieved 18 March 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2025/local-services/children-social-care  Ofsted defines this complexity as “multiple, overlapping needs” that “require a collective response from multiple agencies”. ¹⁶ Ofsted, ‘How local authorities and children’s homes can achieve stability and permanence for children with complex needs’, GOV.UK, 16 January 2024, retrieved 26 September 2025, www.gov.uk/government/publications/good-decisions-children-with-complex-needs-in-childrens-homes/how-local-authorities-and-childrens-homes-can-achiev…  Many of these children’s primary needs lie outside of social care – in health, education, welfare, immigration or the justice system. And recent Institute for Government research suggests that children’s inability to access other services is, at least in part, driving this reported rise in complexity. ¹⁷ Dellar A, Performance Tracker 2025, ‘Children’s social care’, Institute for Government, 15 October 2025, retrieved 18 March 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2025/local-services/children-social-care  For example, a chronic lack of capacity in mental health services means that 150,000 children in England have already spent more than two years on a waiting list, ¹⁸ Hayward E, ‘Children wait years for mental health care’, The Times, 25 April 2025, retrieved 15 September 2025, www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/children-mental-health-care-rj5fndbmt  often entirely without professional care. ¹⁹ Care Quality Commission, The State of Health Care and Adult Social Care in England 2023/24, HC 274, The Stationery Office, 2024, www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-10/20241025_stateofcare2324_print_0.pdf  For some of these children, social care becomes the only formal route to support.

Children with the most complex needs often require specialist support, and sometimes round-the-clock supervision, which has increased demand for placements with specific facilities and expertise – especially secure children’s homes and specialist foster care. ³⁹ Institute for Government interviews.

Finally, children in care are getting older. The share aged 16 and over rose from 21% in 2011 to 27% in 2025. ⁴⁰ Department for Education, ‘Children looked after in England including adoptions’, GOV.UK, 26 November 2025, retrieved 23 January 2026, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2025  Although rising numbers of UASC account for much of this change,^** fewer care exits mean children stay in care for longer, while increased identification of harms outside the home – which typically affect older children – means more children are entering care at older ages. ²² Fitzsimons P, James D, Shaw S and Newcombe B, Drivers of Activity in Children’s Social Care, Department for Education, 2022, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62961ec9d3bf7f036ddfe7ce/Drivers_of_Activity_in_Children_s_Social_Care.pdf  This has likely increased the demand for children’s homes, including secure children’s homes, which are predominantly used for older children.^{***, 41} Hart D, La Valle I and Holmes L, The Place of Residential Care in the English Child Welfare System, Department for Education, 2015, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a81b831ed915d74e6233c7b/Residential_care_in_the_English_child_welfare_system.pdf

_{*    Publicly available data lacks a good measure of complexity, making it difficult to quantify or track these trends systematically.}

_{**    The DfE has not published data on the age profile of non-UASC in care before 2021, so we cannot precisely quantify how much of the ageing of the care population is due to factors beyond the rise in UASC. But even if all UASC were aged 16 and over, they could still not account for all of the increase in age, meaning non-UASC in care have also been getting older on average.}

_{***  This is not to say that these are the settings where older children have the best outcomes.}