What is the Care Certificate?
Adult social care Last checked
The short answer
The Care Certificate is the agreed set of standards a new care worker is assessed against in their first weeks at work. It covers 15 standards, from duty of care and safeguarding through to nutrition and infection control. Your employer delivers and assesses it, you do not pay for it, and you do not need it before applying.
What it is, in one paragraph
The Care Certificate is an agreed baseline for what a new care worker should know and be able to do. It is not an exam you sit before entering the sector. It is a structured induction, delivered and assessed by your employer while you work, covering the things everyone providing hands-on care needs to understand from the start.
The 15 standards
- Understand your role
- Your personal development
- Duty of care
- Equality and diversity
- Work in a person-centred way
- Communication
- Privacy and dignity
- Fluids and nutrition
- Awareness of mental health, dementia and learning disability
- Safeguarding adults
- Safeguarding children
- Basic life support
- Health and safety
- Handling information
- Infection prevention and control
Two of those surprise people. Safeguarding children is in there even in adult services, because care workers go into homes and see families. Handling information is in there because the records you write are legal documents and the things you learn about people are confidential in a way that is easy to be casual about.
How it is actually assessed
Not by a multiple-choice test alone. The framework combines learning with observation of your practice by someone competent to judge it.
In a typical induction that means:
- Classroom or e-learning covering the knowledge parts.
- Shadowing experienced colleagues.
- Being observed doing the practical elements: moving and handling, personal care, infection control, feeding support.
- A portfolio of evidence, signed off standard by standard.
This is why it takes weeks. It is also why an online-only Care Certificate bought from a third party does not do what the framework is for: nobody has watched you work.
Does it move with you?
This is the most common question and the honest answer has two halves.
In practice, yes, it travels. Keep your certificate and your portfolio. A new employer will usually accept completed standards as evidence and will not make you start from nothing.
In principle, the new employer stays responsible for being satisfied you are competent in their setting. So expect them to check, and expect some reassessment of practical standards, particularly if you are moving between very different services, such as home care to a nursing home.
The Care Certificate and the newer qualification
A regulated adult social care qualification at Level 2 also exists, and it sits above the Care Certificate rather than replacing it for new starters.
[VERIFY: current status, funding and employer expectations for the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate, Skills for Care] This part of the landscape has changed recently and is the thing most worth reading from the source rather than from a job advert.
If an advert says “Care Certificate required”, it usually means the induction standards. If it says “Level 2 required”, it means a qualification. They are not the same and the difference affects whether you are eligible today.
What it is not
- Not a licence to practise. Care work is not a licensed profession in the way nursing is. The Care Certificate does not register you with anybody.
- Not something to buy. Your employer delivers it as part of employing you.
- Not a barrier to applying. If you do not have it, apply anyway. That is the expected position for someone new to care.
Questions people ask
Do I need the Care Certificate to apply for a care job?
No. It is designed to be completed after you start, as part of induction, and employers expect to deliver it. Anyone selling you a Care Certificate as a condition of entry into care work is selling you something the sector does not ask new starters to buy.
How long does it take to complete?
Typically weeks rather than days, because it is assessed through observed practice as well as learning. Employers run it alongside your early shifts. A provider offering to complete all 15 standards in an afternoon online is not assessing your practice, which is the part that matters.
Does the Care Certificate transfer to a new employer?
In practice it travels with you as evidence, and a new employer will often accept it, but they remain responsible for satisfying themselves you are competent. Expect some reassessment, particularly of practical standards. Keep your completed portfolio and certificate rather than leaving them with a former employer.
Is the Care Certificate a qualification?
It is a set of assessed standards rather than a regulated qualification, which is why people find its status confusing. A separate regulated adult social care qualification also exists and sits above it. Check which one a job advert means before assuming you already hold it.
Adverts for the roles in this guide
Read the adverts yourself and apply to the ones you want. Nothing here puts you in front of an employer until you decide to.
Where this comes from
Government guidance and workforce data both change. Each entry names its publisher so you can read the original rather than take our word for it.
- Skills for Care — The Care Certificate (skillsforcare.org.uk) [VERIFY: source] Standards and the newer adult social care qualification both sit with Skills for Care. Confirm the current framework before launch.
- Skills for Care — Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) open data (data.gov.uk) , 2026 Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the data behind every local figure on the site.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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