The Health Foundation | Unpaid care: the realities of caring in the UK

This report presents the latest evidence on the scale and nature of unpaid caring across the UK.

Unpaid carers play a vital role in society, supporting friends and family because of illness, disability, mental health problems or addiction. Our latest analysis finds that 1 in 6 adults in the UK provided unpaid care between 2023 and 2025, similar to 2018–20. Caring responsibilities remain disproportionately concentrated among women and older working-age adults.

Caring is often rewarding, but without the right support, it can come at a personal and financial cost. Working-age unpaid carers are less likely to be in paid employment – 59% were in paid employment, compared with 67% of working-age adults who were not carers. 37% of carers aged 18–29 reported having a long-term health condition or being disabled, compared with 22% of those not providing care.



Despite this, financial support for carers is limited and generally targeted at those with lower incomes. And high reliance on unpaid care is embedded in the adult social care system. The government should both review existing support for unpaid carers and look again at the imbalance of responsibility for caring between individuals and the state – the Casey Commission offers an important opportunity to do this. 

Read about this and more in our weekly newsletter for 4 March 2026.