Social Work England will increase fees for 2025 to 2026

Today, we have published the outcome of our 12-week consultation on proposals to make changes to the fees for social workers, including new applicants.

After carefully considering all of the feedback we received during the consultation, we have decided it is appropriate to increase our fees as set out in our proposals.

This means that we will be increasing fees for social workers and applicants for the upcoming registration year which runs from 1 December 2025 to 30 November 2026. We will also then increase these each year by 1.85% until 2029. Full details of these changes are outlined in Table 1 below.

Social workers renewing their registration from 1 September 2025 will be required to pay a £120 registration renewal fee for the upcoming registration year. Our initial registration, restoration and scrutiny fees will also increase from 1 December 2025.

Social workers, who are UK taxpayers, may be eligible to claim tax relief on their fees. This could be backdated for up to 4 previous tax years. For the upcoming registration and renewal period, this equates to £96 (from £120) for a tax rate of 20%. Further details can be found on HMRC's website. 

We will be emailing everyone on the social work register to let them know the outcome and the upcoming changes.

This decision was made as the fees for social workers have not changed in 10 years, while the grant-in-aid we receive has increased every year since Social Work England’s establishment which is not sustainable. The increase to fees will ensure a more balanced and stable funding base aligned to our true cost of operation and to enable positive change in social work.

For full details of the feedback, we received during the consultation and how we used this to make a decision, please read our consultation response.

Colum Conway, Chief Executive of Social Work England, said:

“Over the past few months we have taken time to consider all the feedback we received through the public consultation.

We understand many people will not agree with the decision to increase our fees, but we feel this necessary to help us continue to meet our overarching objective of protecting the public.

This will ensure we can deliver all of our regulatory objectives and goals and protect the public. This includes helping us to further improve case progression and timeliness in the fitness to practise process.”

The new fee structure

Table 1: The changes we will make to our fees each registration year (which runs from 1 December to 30 November each year)*

If you are viewing this table on a desktop please use the scroll underneath the table to view proposed fees up to 2029

* Please note renewal fees are charged in advance of the registration year as part of the registration renewal process during 1 September and 30 November each year.

** The above tax relief values outlined in table 1 are based on a tax rate of 20%. Further details can be found on HMRC's website.

Further information about why we are increasing our fees can be found in our frequently asked questions section at the end of our consultation response.