How to get more applications for care roles: what the data says

Recruiting care staff takes real time and effort. You write the advert, post it and wait, and it's often hard to know whether the response you get is good, poor or about normal. Or what you could do differently next time.

To help answer that, we looked at a sample of 110 health and social care roles advertised through TalentATS between May and November 2026. Frontline care roles drew an average of 41 applications each, with an average of 15 strong applicants per role. But averages hide a lot. The biggest difference came from where roles were posted: those on four or more job boards drew about 12 times the applications of roles on just one. A few other clear patterns explain much of the rest.

The wider picture is better than it was, but still tight. Skills for Care's latest workforce report puts the adult social care vacancy rate in England at 6.2% for 2025/26, the lowest in a decade, yet still around three times the rate in the wider economy. Every advert needs to work hard.

Here are six things the data says make a difference.

1. Post to more job boards

This was the clearest pattern in the data. Roles posted to four or more boards drew about 12 times the applications of roles posted to just one. More boards won't guarantee a result, but the difference is hard to ignore.

Part of the reason is where applicants come from. No single board brought in more than about a fifth of applications. Totaljobs supplied around 22%, Reed around 18%, Indeed around 17%, CV-Library around 15% and LinkedIn around 6%, with the rest coming from smaller and regional boards such as MyJobScotland and from employers' own careers pages. Each extra board reaches people the others don't.

If managing several board accounts is what holds you back, posting to multiple boards from one place takes most of the effort out of it.

2. Keep job titles short and clear

Roles with short titles, up to 25 characters, averaged 40 applications. Medium-length titles averaged 34, and long titles of 46 characters or more averaged 18. Only seven roles had long titles, so treat this as a pattern rather than a rule, but it's a consistent one.

Candidates search for plain job titles like "Care Assistant" or "Support Worker". Use the title they'd type, and save the location, shift pattern and selling points for the advert itself.

3. Show the pay

Of the 110 roles we looked at, 105 showed the pay. Showing it is simply what care adverts do now, so a role without pay stands out, and not in a good way. Care workers compare hourly rates side by side, and they can't compare yours if it isn't there.

It's also set to become a legal requirement. In November 2026 the government announced a new "say what you pay" law that will require employers to publish salaries in job adverts. No start date has been set yet, but ministers are asking employers to show pay now rather than wait.

4. Say if the role is permanent

Permanent roles averaged 38 applications, compared with 9 for contract roles. There were only ten contract roles, so again this is a pattern rather than proof, but the gap is wide.

If a role is permanent or comes with guaranteed hours, say so in the title or the first lines of the advert. For many care workers, security is the deciding factor.

5. Be ready to respond the same day

Care candidates often apply for several jobs at once, so the employer who gets back to them first has a real advantage.

It helps to decide before you post who will check applications and when. Even a short same-day message to say you've received an application keeps a good candidate interested, and letting them book an interview straight into your calendar saves another round of emails.

6. Shortlist the strongest first

Frontline care roles averaged 15 strong applicants each. These are people who scored 4 or 5 out of 5 on TalentATS's own AI match, which compares each application with what the role needs. It's a helpful guide rather than an independent measure, but it shows there are usually good people in the pile.

The risk is reaching them too late. Rather than working through applications in date order, use scoring or a few quick screening questions to get to the best-matched candidates first.

Making it easier

None of this needs a big budget. It comes down to clear adverts, posted widely, and getting back to the right people quickly.

TalentATS was built with care recruitment in mind. You can post one advert to multiple job boards at once, see which boards are bringing you applicants, and have every application scored automatically so the strongest matches rise to the top.

If you'd like to see how it could work for your service, book a short demo or try TalentATS free for 14 days.

About the data

This analysis looks at a sample of 110 UK health and social care vacancies from 31 employers, posted between May and November 2026 and advertised on at least one job board through TalentATS. It reflects roles advertised through TalentATS, not the UK care sector as a whole. Frontline care roles include care assistants, carers, healthcare assistants and support workers, and exclude management roles. Application and strong-applicant figures are averages per vacancy, so a few high-volume roles pull them up and many roles received fewer. Figures in the text are rounded to the nearest whole number; the chart shows them to one decimal place. Job board shares are approximate. The findings on job boards, titles and contract type are patterns in the data, not proof of cause, and some groups are small. "Strong applicants" are those scored 4 or 5 out of 5 by TalentATS's own AI match; this is not an independent measure. Duplicate applications and test accounts were excluded, and no individual customer's data is shown.