‘If someone told me I’d be working in the care sector after retirement, I would have been very surprised,” said David Richardson who came out of retirement nearly two years ago to be a carer.
The former civil servant retired in November 2022 at 60 but, a year later, and with no care experience, he took a part-time job at the recruitment service Seniors Helping Seniors.
Richardson, 63, works two days a week and visits five elderly clients. He drives them to hospital appointments, takes them out for lunch and the occasional pint — and he even organises their household bills.
“I helped one client with getting cheaper fuel bills, and in the first year I saved him about £1,500,” said Richardson, who lives in Herne Bay, Kent.
Caring is sharing
Sally Wilse, the co-owner of Seniors Helping Seniors, which recruits older people to look after the elderly in their own homes, said Richardson was not unusual. “Lots of people are looking for extra work because pensions aren’t what they were.”
She said her carers include former members of the police, some who worked in education and even senior corporate professionals.
• ‘I’m still working at 70. I love my job so much, I commute three hours a day’
“When people come back into work, they want to be respected, they want purpose, they want to be paid well. They also want work to be flexible, and working as a carer can offer that,” she said.
Some 29 per cent of the workforce in the adult social care sector in England was over 55 in 2023, according to Skills for Care, which provides training and is funded by the government. This was up from 23 per cent in 2016-17.
The Canterbury branch of Seniors Helping Seniors, where Richardson works, employs 90 people aged 24 to 81, with the average age of employees being 60.
• Older people have a great deal to offer the workplace
Back in the workforce
The proportion of the UK workforce that were over 65 hit a record 12.7 per cent between April and June, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Ten years ago it was 10.1 per cent and in 2005 it was just over 6 per cent.
Some, like Richardson, are returners. A survey of 6,000 people by the pensions firm Standard Life in July and August last year found that about 7 per cent of those over 55 who had retired were now back at work, while a further 2 per cent were looking for a job.
Carers at Seniors Helping Seniors who provide full personal care, which includes helping clients get cleaned and dressed, earn £15.70 on average, while those providing companionship care, like Richardson, usually earn £14.30 an hour.
Richardson makes about £450 a month, which supplements the £2,000 he gets from his personal pensions. He will get the state pension when he turns 67 in 2028. His wife Pamela, 70, came out of retirement two years ago to work two days a week as a service co-ordinator for the same company. She earns about £800 a month to top up her state pension of £931 a month.
Not just about the money
He said: “We didn’t need the extra money to pay our bills, but it has given us the chance to go out and have some fun, because a five-day weekend does cost a few quid,” he said.
“But we also enjoy it. I love the conversations; a chat with a client last week went from us talking about Harry S Truman one minute, to the Sultan of Oman the next,” Richardson said. “I recommend working in care to anyone in my position, you will find that one of your last ever roles will be your most rewarding.”
Eileen Connell, 73, from Canterbury has been working for Seniors Helping Seniors for more than a decade. She does 10-12 hours a week as a carer for Seniors Helping Seniors, earning about £500.
One of the people Eileen Connell, 73, cares for is a gym-loving 96-year-old
In June, she had a heart attack, and after a break, she is now back working. “If it were an office job or manual work, I wouldn’t be back, but that is one of the beauties of of being a carer, our schedule can be tailored to us and our clients,” she said.
She sees three people a week, including a 71-year-old woman with mobility issues. “We have chats and I do little odd jobs around the house, and then after I’ve seen her, she takes her walking frame with her to the gym, where she uses the rowing machine,” Connell said. She also cares for a a gym-loving 96-year-old.
Connell, who lives alone, thinks being a carer helps to prevent loneliness in old age — for her as well as those she looks after. She said: “It makes a huge difference to my life; without it, I would spend a lot more time on my own and be isolated.”
The money helps to top up the £884 a month she gets from the state pension and £450 a month from a private pension. “It’s a lifeline for me. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t have a car, and I wouldn’t have a social life. My other income only covers rent and household bills.”
Crying out for older workers
About 6.5 per cent of adult social care jobs in England were unfilled in the last financial year, according to Skills for Care, which estimates that an extra 540,000 jobs will have been created in the sector by 2040.
Ben Maruthappu is a doctor who set up the care company Cera to try to coordinate healthcare in people’s homes and take pressure off the NHS. It now employs 10,000 carers. He said: “We have worked to recruit more older workers and have been glad to see more over-50s applying. People in this age group can bring immense value: from experience in caring for loved ones to the ability to form strong, trusting relationships.”
Cera said that 13.3 per cent of new jobs went to those over 50 in 2024, up from 9.5 per cent the year before. Of those over-50s recruited this year, 22 per cent had no prior care experience. It is working to encourage more over-50s into care, including those coming out of retirement.
‘I was bored of retirement’
Rita Walker from Merseyside had to retire from her care job at 65 because she was busy fostering her two young grandchildren. But after a decade out, she returned in 2021 at the age of 75.
“I got bored and I needed something to do, and I had a friend who was working in care, so I decided to come back,” Walker said.
Rita Walker,78, worked five hours a day, five days a week as a carer until last year
For the next three years, Walker worked for Cera at Poppyfields, a retirement community near Greasby on the Wirral.
Providing personal care five hours a day, five days a week more than doubled her £1,114 monthly income — £730 from the state pension and £284 from her private pension. It meant she could afford to go on holidays to Portugal and Turkey, and help to support one of her grandchildren at university.
“I was able to give my grandchildren a better quality of life than I could give my own children,” said Walker, who retired for the second time at 78 in September last year.
A cash lifeline
Mike Ambery from Standard Life believes that the rising cost of living will force more older people to gradually reduce their hours rather than stopping work suddenly, while others will take on part-time work at some point. “It’s likely that more will shun the traditional cliff-edge retirement. Many who have recently retired are being forced to rethink their plans and return to work to supplement their income.”
Of the 7 per cent of over-55s in Standard Life’s survey who had returned to work, 43 per cent said it was because they wanted to be able to treat themselves, while 27 per cent said their pension was not enough to live on.
Caroline Abrahams from the charity Age UK, said: “We hear of significant numbers of care professionals who are older people themselves and who carry on working until deep into later life, certainly past their state pension age.”
For Pam Richardson, the money is only one of the benefits of coming out of retirement to be a carer. She said: “The thing I love about it is you just make a huge difference to people’s lives, and that can sometime be as simple as having a cup of tea with them.”