Care pay from April 2027: will home care cost more?

From 1 April 2027 the legal minimum wage for anyone aged 21 or over rises from £12.71 to £13.21 an hour, up 50p or 3.9%, announced on 28 October 2026. Care is a minimum-wage sector: about one care worker in four is paid within 10p of the floor, so most providers’ costs rise with it and home care prices tend to move in April. The London Living Wage, which some London employers pay by choice, is already £15.45. The Fair Pay Agreement will not change a carer’s pay before April 2028. Here is what each means for the price of a visit, and what to ask.

What was announced on 28 October

The government accepted the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations in full. From 1 April 2027 the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £13.21 an hour. The 18 to 20 rate rises to £11.27, and the rate for 16 and 17 year olds and apprentices to £8.31, all up 3.9%. The Commission expects the rise to beat inflation over the year to March 2028.

For a care worker on the floor working a 37-hour week, 50p an hour is a little over £18 a week before tax. The rates are announced, not yet law: the regulations go before Parliament in the new year.

Why care pay sits so close to the floor

Skills for Care’s annual workforce report, published on 14 October 2026, puts the median hourly pay of a care worker in the independent sector at £12.60 in March 2026. That was 39p above the legal minimum at the time. More than a quarter (27%) were paid within 10p of the minimum, and almost half of all independent sector workers (49%) were paid less than the £12.71 that took effect two weeks later.

London fares worse: only 31% of care workers in London earned the London Living Wage or more, and 44% of home care workers are on zero-hours contracts.

This is why pay is a family question, not only a payroll one. Workers with pay at or above the local average, guaranteed hours, full-time work, training and a qualification left at 15.3%, against 34.3% for those with none of these. Higher pay also went with better CQC scores. When the people doing the visits stay, your relative is not explaining the house, the hearing aid and the cat to a stranger every few weeks.

The London Living Wage: the voluntary benchmark

The Living Wage Foundation announced its new rates on 15 October 2026: £14.10 an hour across the UK and £15.45 in London, both up 65p. These are not the law. Nearly 17,000 accredited employers pay them by choice and have until 1 May 2027 to move to the new figure. From April 2027 the London rate will sit £2.24 an hour above the legal minimum.

We pay the London Living Wage as a minimum, from a carer’s first shift and including their paid induction. Ask any provider you are considering which of the two figures its carers start on, and whether travel time between visits is paid.

What a fair hourly price looks like, and what councils pay

The Homecare Association calculates each year the minimum a home care visit needs to cost. For 2026/27 it is £34.42 an hour in England: legally compliant pay for the care worker including travel time and mileage, the employer’s costs on top of wages, and a minimum contribution to running a service that meets CQC’s requirements. It is the floor at which the law is kept and the business survives, not a premium price.

Against that, the Association’s October 2026 survey of 176 council contracts found an average fee of £25.37 an hour in England, £9.05 short. Councils raised fees by 3.7% on average in a year when the minimum wage rose 4.1%. Greater London paid the lowest average of any region, £22.66, and 86% of London contracts fell below the direct cost of employing a carer.

Our five boroughs sit in that picture. The Department of Health and Social Care’s provisional 2025/26 figures, reported by councils themselves, put the average hourly rate paid to home care providers at £24.60 in Hounslow, £20.49 in Brent, £20.25 in Hillingdon, £19.47 in Ealing and £18.45 in Harrow. England’s average was £25.05. No 2026/27 decisions have been published for any of the five, but the Association says its members reported frozen fees in Harrow and Hillingdon this year.

The Fair Pay Agreement: where it has got to

The Employment Rights Act 2025 lets ministers set up a negotiating body for adult social care in England. Unions and employers agree pay and conditions there, and the agreement then applies across the sector. The government announced £500 million for the first agreement on 30 September 2025, from the extra social care funding for 2028/29. Its consultation response of 16 July 2026 set the shape: an independent chair, equal numbers of union and employer representatives, and councils involved without a vote.

The regulations creating the body were laid before Parliament on 3 November 2026 and, as of 11 November, were still awaiting approval by both Houses. The government’s timeline update of 5 November says the body will be established by January 2027. Negotiations for 2028/29 are expected to start around April 2027, with the first agreement taking effect in April 2028. A national pension scheme for care workers was announced on 30 September 2026, with no details yet.

So the honest answer to “when will carers be paid more because of the Fair Pay Agreement?” is April 2028 at the earliest, by an amount nobody yet knows.

What this means for your relative’s care, and what to ask

A pay floor rising 3.9% does not mean a 3.9% price rise everywhere, but pay is most of the cost of a visit, so a rise in April is the normal pattern. Five questions, in the order we would ask them.

• What do you pay your carers, and is travel time paid?

  A provider should say whether carers start on the legal minimum or the London Living Wage. GOV.UK counts time travelling between clients as working time, so unpaid travel is a pay cut by another name.

• What is the hourly rate, in writing, before care starts?

  One rate on one sheet, with the minimum visit length and anything that costs extra, and a straight answer on whether it changes in April. Our quote is one hourly rate with no weekend or bank holiday surcharge, in writing before care begins.

• How many different carers will my relative see?

  Ask how the provider keeps the same people on a round and what happens when someone is off. We place the same carers with each person wherever possible.

• If the council arranges the care, what is it paying?

  The council pays the provider at its own rate and your relative contributes what the means test says. With a direct payment, ask the council in writing whether the budget rises in April, so the hours do not quietly shrink.

• Can I see the CQC report?

  Staffing is where the inspector has already looked. Ours rates us Good in all five areas (assessed 6 January 2026).

Questions families ask

Will my mum’s home care cost more from April 2027?

Probably, if she pays privately: the legal minimum rises 3.9% on 1 April 2027 and pay is most of the cost of a visit, so most providers review prices then. Ask yours now, in writing. If the council arranges her care, her contribution is set by the means test, not the provider’s rate.

Is the London Living Wage the law?

No. The London Living Wage (£15.45 from 15 October 2026) is a voluntary rate set by the Living Wage Foundation. The National Living Wage (£12.71 now, £13.21 from April 2027) is the legal minimum for anyone aged 21 or over across the UK.

When will the Fair Pay Agreement actually raise carers’ pay?

Not before April 2028, on the government’s own timetable: the negotiating body by January 2027, talks from around April 2027, the first agreement in April 2028. No rates have been agreed.

Facts in this guide were checked against the sources below on 11 November 2026. The April 2027 rates are announced and not yet in regulations; GOV.UK has the final word on the rates, your council on its own fees and charges, and Acas or HMRC on an individual pay complaint.