Care UK

Fulfilling lives, fulfilling careers

People are our passion at Care UK. Our 15,000-plus colleagues provide a wide range of quality care services and support roles caring for older people in warm, friendly care homes across England, Wales and Scotland.

Compare us to similar providers and you’ll see we have the highest percentage of homes rated good or outstanding. What’s more, we are continuing to invest and expand – we have opened 55 homes since 2014 with a further 20 sites in planning and construction.

Our passion is to enable residents to continue living active and fulfilling lives in supportive, safe and comfortable surroundings. This passion for great care and our ambitious development means that we offer a great place to build a fantastic career with us and we have plenty of opportunities for training and progression.

Who we are

Care UK is one of the largest providers of residential care for older people in the UK, operating over 150 care homes. Our team of more than 10,000 provide care home and day club care to over 7,000 people a year.

We service the following groups of older care receivers:

• People who can no longer live alone
• Those with complex medical needs
• Individuals suffering from any form of dementia
• Patients that require short term care post surgery or illness
• Individuals and families needing end of life care

Services we offer at Care UK

Residential care

Residential care is suited to older people that would benefit from a social setting and without the burden of taking care of day to day tasks, like cooking and cleaning. Some of our residents have increased mobility or health concerns, making living alone very difficult. Our residential care is designed to be a safe, stimulating environment, without the pressures of housework and personal care.

Care assistants provide most of the person-centred care we deliver in this setting, including personal care and support for full time residents. This can include bathing and dressing, but many residents need little help in this area, but benefit from help with mobility and providing activities for general health and wellbeing.

Nursing care

Our nursing care homes offer a service for older people who need the support of a 24-hour nursing team. This might include those recently discharged from hospital, or those with long-term health conditions.

Nurses offer a wide range of medical expertise at our nursing care homes, and are able to adapt care plans to suit the changing needs of our residents.

Nursing dementia care

Care UK’s nursing dementia care homes, not only do nurses offer 24-hour, round the clock care for complex medical needs, but also for the physical changes often found in later-stage dementia patients.

Dementia is a progressive condition, and our care homes are designed to adapt to each individual’s level of need, as it progresses.

Respite care

Our respite care facilities provide short-term care for older people, at the time they need it most. This often is after an operation or illness, or when their regular care-giver takes time away from care. Our respite care provides 24-hour support for older people during this time.

Many of our care homes offer this service alongside their other services, our teams have experience with supporting many care situations. These include Alzheimer’s, many other forms of dementia, physical disabilities, restricted mobility along with conditions like Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis.

“Thank you for giving me a happy fortnight at Davers Court. The collective, cheerful attitude and wiliness of the team were terrific. This practical kindness was a great help on several occasions which enabled me to enjoy my stay.”

- Respite resident, Davers Court

End-of-life care

For the family and loved ones of older people reaching the end of their lives, our end of life care is a form of palliative care. An end of life plan allows individual wishes to be fulfilled, while combining medical needs, family support and practical details to be detailed in advance.

Care UK has achieved the nationally accredited “Gold Standards Framework” in many of its homes, for its end of life care services.

Find a job working for Care UK

Browse our nursing jobs

Browse our managerial and care assistant jobs

Browse our back office jobs

Care UK Careers

We seek individuals who truly believe in making a difference. Whether you’re just starting your journey in care or have years of experience, we’ll support your development with sector-leading training opportunities to ensure you can continue to learn throughout your career.

• Care Assistant
• Care Team Leader
• Care Unit Manager
• Non-Clinical Deputy Manager
• Registered General Nurse
• Registered Mental Nurse
• Nurse Manager
• Clinical Unit Manager
• Clinical Lead
• Clinical Deputy Manager
• Quality Development Manager
• Lead Quality Development Manager
• Operations Support Manager
• Relief Manager

Nurses

If you are an experienced nurse looking to take the next step, at Care UK, we'll help you progress quickly in your career by giving you training tailored to your personal career goals. We’ll empower you by giving you responsibility and encouraging you to mentor colleagues and develop specialist skills. Our Seacole Academy of Care and Clinical Excellence will support you with ongoing practice development.

Nurses working at Care UK care homes provide clinical nursing to residents including medication management, infection prevention and control, including wound care and catheter management. They also develop tailored care plans for individualised care of residents. We use Waterlow and MUST clinical assessment tools to support our work.

We also offer opportunities for newly qualified nurses.

Care Assistants

Our hardworking care assistants always keep individuals and their families at the heart of the care they provide. They work with the families to shape the care that each resident receives, from the food they’re served to the activities and experiences they want to do – even the ways they prefer to keep in touch with their friends and family.

Team Leaders

With a proven ability to lead and supervise others, team leaders work alongside care assistants to support residents with their daily needs. Ideally with an NVQ level 3 in health and social care, or with a desire to achieve this, team leaders will carry out risk assessments, administer and record medication requirements and lead the care assistants on a day to day basis.

Clinical Leadership

• Developing your management and leadership skills
• Delivering high-quality care to support residents to live fulfilling lives
• Upholding care and clinical standards
• Supporting residents with complex needs and dependency levels

Whether you’re coming from a hospital, another care setting or overseas, we’ll give you a home for your nursing skills – and help you build a fulfilling career.We recognise that our people are far and away our most valuable asset, and that’s why we believe it’s important to support our teams to enjoy fulfilling careers.

Lifestyle Teams

Our dedicated lifestyles teams work hard to organise a range of activities and events at our home. From gardening and baking to quizzes, music sessions and even live entertainment. Above all, we get to know each resident to make sure our activities are tailored to suit their interests and hobbies.

Care UK Employee Values & Culture

At Care UK, our core purpose is fulfilling residents' lives so they can continue to enjoy active and meaningful lives. We’re driven by a belief that every one of us makes a difference. Every single member of our team, whether you’re a carer, housekeeper, manager or kitchen assistant, has a role to play in delivering fulfilling lives for residents, their families and each other.

Our three values – Caring, Passionate and Teamwork – underpin everything our colleagues do, right across Care UK. We look for these values when candidates interview with us, too.

Caring

• Know each person as an individual
• Treat colleagues and residents with kindness, dignity and respect
• Be supportive in all we do
• Make every moment count

Passionate

• Be proud of the care we deliver
• Bring commitment and energy to our roles
• Look for ways to do things better
• Put our training and expertise into practice

Teamwork

• Ask for help when we need it and offer it where we can
• Work with others to find creative solutions
• Understand the importance of families and communities in the care we deliver
• Be open to learning and improving
• Speak up if we see something wrong
• Delivering safe, high-quality care tailored to each resident’s needs is a key part of what we do.

To do this, we have created a vision and a set of values that our teams truly connect with, and which inspire us all to do great things.

Career Development at Care UK

Here at Care UK, we want all our colleagues to have a long and successful career with us. Our vision is to provide an inclusive training culture that empowers all colleagues to develop a fulfilling career. From induction to training workshops and apprenticeships, we actively support colleagues to learn new skills and progress their careers.

Whether you’re new to care or highly experienced, we have clear progression paths to allow you to map out your career with us. We offer a range of opportunities for colleagues to build on their skills throughout their career journey and through our learning programmes, you can become a:

• Care UK Buddy
• Colleague Voice Champion
• Dementia Champion
• Moving and Positioning Trainer
• Emergency First Aider
• Fire Warden

Here are just some of the ways we help our team members to develop more fulfilling careers:

A friendly induction

We want new colleagues to feel supported right from the start. Our Buddy programme helps new team members become familiar with our vision, values and ways of working, while giving experienced colleagues a chance to share their knowledge.

Bespoke learning and development programmes

Whether you’re new to care or highly experienced. We have innovative programmes tailored to each role, as well as clear progression paths to allow you to map out your career with us.

For example, every nurse working in a nursing dementia care home receives our “Experiential dementia training” course and there are options to receive extra training during your career with us too.

Continuous Professional Development

If you’re a registered nurse, you’ll be automatically provided with access to ClinicalSkills.Net, a resource that provides you with in-depth clinical procedure guidance to continue developing your skills.

Role specific skills training workshops

Designed specifically for our nurses and team leaders to learn new skills and build on existing knowledge to reach your full potential within your current role and support your next steps.

Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships let you earn as you learn and acquire recognised qualifications. Today, they’re open to anyone looking to develop new skills, not just young people starting out. At Care UK, team members who are recruited in Apprenticeship roles are paid our standard team pay rates, which is always National Living Wage or above.

Moving up the career ladder

If you’re ambitious to progress, we’ll support you with tailored training and development programmes. If you’re dedicated, we’ll help you go far.

Staying in your role

We appreciate that you will also want to focus on being the best you can be. We’ll support you with ongoing training to help you do just that. When you’re part of the Care UK team, you don’t just have a job, you have a career.

Returning to work

We support people looking to return to work through training and development, helping them to adapt and learn new skills. Whether you’re a parent looking to take on part time work, someone caring for family members, have just taken a break from your career or even a nurse returning to work, wanting to regain your PIN. Whatever the reason, we can support you.

Support and inclusion

At Care UK we strive to support colleagues' physical, mental and financial wellbeing and promote diversity and inclusion.

Colleague wellbeing

Our teams’ wellbeing is our top priority, and we believe it’s important to foster a culture of promoting open and honest conversations. Our benefits include tools and discounts to help employees manage their physical and financial wellbeing and mental health, including an Employee Assistance Programme. Our support centre and each of our care homes take a unique approach to supporting their teams, from providing team breakfasts and socials to training Mental Health First Aiders.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to creating a working environment where all colleagues can achieve their full potential, free from discrimination or harassment. We're proud to promote our diverse workforce. Having a team of different ages, genders and backgrounds ensures fresh thinking and encourages creativity and teamwork. We are committed to nurturing an inclusive culture and affording equal opportunities to all.

Our employee initiatives

Take a look at the other policies, practices and initiatives below that we've put in place to foster an environment where colleagues feel valued, respected and that they belong. These are constantly under review to ensure they continue to meet the needs of our colleagues and residents.

Values-based recruitment

Our 'no experience necessary' approach means we operate a values based recruitment strategy ensuring opportunities are open to all.

Community-based events

Our colleagues participate in community events ranging from LGBGTQ+ Pride events across the country to Barrio Fiesta in London and many more.

Inclusion networks

We have a number of inclusion networks which colleagues are encouraged to join, such as Colleague Voices, Mental Health First Aiders and an EDI Committee.

Equality Diversity Inclusion (EDI) committee

We involve frontline colleagues in generating feedback and ideas based on their own lived EDI experiences.

Partnering with social mobility charity Speakers for Schools

We're delivering a project for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) on behalf of Greater Essex Careers Hub. We aim to support this and similar initiatives nationally in the long term.

Care UK Employee Benefits

Whatever your role you’ll be joining a friendly, supportive company with a close-knit family feel. One of the many advantages of working for Care UK is we offer a variety of marketing-leading benefits and incentives for our staff members. These range from shopping discounts, holiday buy scheme, refer a friend scheme, free uniforms and many more.

Recognition is a big part of our culture at Care UK and we offer several ways for staff to feel seen for the hard work they do. This includes our GEM Awards that staff can recommend each other for both in and out of their home service, Long Service Award for outstanding commitment to working for Care UK and even our Christmas Gift Voucher that all Care UK employees receive to help with your Christmas shopping.

We recognise the value of a healthy work life balance – so we always try to be flexible, helping you fit your working life around your home life.

The table in the photo gallery shows the many ways that our Perks and Benefits can help you save money while working at Care UK.

We celebrate success!

Whether it’s a pat on the back from a colleague, praise from your manager or a smile from a resident, it’s nice to be appreciated. We go one step further, by recognising good performance through various award schemes, including

• Long Service Awards – these awards recognise long-term commitment and loyalty
• GEM (Going the Extra Mile) – a monthly recognition scheme to celebrate colleagues living our values
  - Care UK Stars – our annual award scheme
• National awards – we also enter lots of external national award schemes, where our teams have been known to pick up a prize or two!
  

Explore our care homes

Mildenhall Lodge Care Home

Chichester Grange Care Home

Field Lodge Care Home, St Ives, Cambridgeshire

Bowes House, Hailsham

Mountfitchet House Care Home, Stansted Mountfitchet

Lauder Lodge, Portobello, Edinburgh

Heather View Care Home, Crowborough

Cairdean House, Colinton, Edinburgh

Snowdrop House, Ware, Herfordshire

Foxbridge House Care Home, Orpington

Tor Na Dee Care Home, Milltimber, Aberdeen

Mills Meadow Care Home, Framlingham, Woodbridge

Murrayside Care Home, Edinburgh

Anning House Care Home, Weymouth

Scarlet House Care Home, Stroud

Dashwood Manor Care Home, Basingstoke

Ellesmere House, Chelsea, London

Haven Lodge Care Home, Clacton-on-sea, Essex

Norfolk House Care Home, Weybridge

Riverside Care Home, Hyde

Sway Place Care Home, Hampshire

Martlet Manor Care Home, Haywards Heath

Cranford Grange, Knutsford, Cheshire

Station House, Crewe, Cheshire

Armstrong House, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear

Foxland Grange, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton

Cumberland Care Home, Mitcham, Surrey

Darlington Court, Littlehampton, West Sussex

Care UK Awards

Each year we are pleased to receive awards across many fields and areas. These are our most recent awards and recognitions:

Public Sector Catering Awards
Care Catering Award
Unsung Hero

Health Investor Awards
Residential provider of the year

Care Home Catering Awards
Care Home Catering Team of the Year

Care Home Awards
Best Continuing Covid-19 Response
Best Care Home Marketing, Advertising or PR Activities
Best for Specialist Care
Outstanding Care Provider in a Group
Best for Wellbeing
Best Facilities Management, Maintenance or Housekeeping Team
Best for Nursing Care

UK Employee Experience Awards
Best Employee Engagement

RoSPA Health & Safety Awards
Achievement Award

Essex Care Awards
Community, Partnership & Collaboration
Outstanding Care Sector Nurse
Diversity and Inclusion

Hotel Housekeeping Honours
Care Home Staff of the Year

National Dementia Care Awards
Best Dementia Care Manager

Islington Dignity in Care Awards
Heart of the Community

Worcestershire Health & Social Care Awards
Care Home Worker Award

Suffolk Care Awards 2023
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Award

Richmond's Dignity in Care Awards
Carer of the Year for Older Peoples’ Care Homes

NAPA
Arts in Care Homes

Nursing Times Awards 2023
Nursing in Social Care