Social workers have less and less time for learning due to work pressures and staff shortages, research has found.
For the second consecutive year, a majority of respondents to Community Care Inform's Learning Landscapes study reported having less time for learning than they did 12 months previously.
As with the 2024 study, the key drivers of the lost learning time were high caseloads, team vacancies and emergency work taking priority, while the 2025 research also found that the situation was affecting practitioners' confidence, resilience, career progression quality of work.
Compared with the previous year, there was a bigger gap in the amount of time practitioners reported needing to carry out self-directed learning and the amount of time they actually had.
Also, most reported having to cancel their attendance at training commissioned by their employer on at least one occasion over the previous year.
Findings on AI and neurodivergent staff
The annual research also revealed that some social workers were using artificial intelligence (AI) regularly for learning and a significant proportion of those who identified as neurodivergent were not being supported by their employer to meet their needs.Commenting on the research, Community Care's publishing director, Katie Sharman, said: "There are some important findings here, and with new areas emerging, including the use of AI in learning and and the need to adapt learning programmes to better support neurodivergent workers, we hope the research will be really useful in supporting employers' learning and development planning.
"We’re offering the research up as a whitepaper to all Community Care Inform local authority subscribing partners, to help them steer their programmes in 2026."
About the research
Community Care Inform delivers expert-produced practice guidance and online learning, in a quick and flexible format, to help social care professionals develop their knowledge and skills and make and evidence decisions, through its subscription-based Inform Adults and Inform Children websites.This study, carried out by Macleod Research in May and June 2025, was a follow-up to similar research carried out in 2022 and 2024. The 2025 study received responses from 2,433 practitioners from England and Wales, 73% of whom worked for local authorities and 84% of whom were qualified social workers.
