Working and Caring: Millions of Employees Now Juggle Both

Paid work and caring for loved ones increasingly run side by side as two parallel parts of everyday life.

For many employees, the working day does not end when they clock off. It continues with the school run, a parent's medical appointment or a regular visit to a relative who needs support.

This means that for a large part of the workforce, flexibility is not a perk on top of the benefits package. It can decide whether a job fits with daily life at all.

Caring is not just about small children

When people talk about combining work with family responsibilities, the first thing that comes to mind is usually parents of young children.

The real picture is broader. Carers include people looking after children as well as those supporting older relatives who need help because of their age or health.

That matters in an ageing society. More and more employees may be raising children, helping their parents and supporting other family members at the same time.

The labour market therefore has to respond not only to the needs of young parents, but more widely to people with caring roles at different stages of life.

What the law gives working carers

In Great Britain, two rights introduced in April 2024 are especially useful:

• Carer's leave: employees can take up to one week of unpaid leave every 12 months to provide or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need. It is available from the first day of employment.
• Flexible working requests: employees can ask for changes to their hours, times or place of work from their first day in a job, and the employer must decide within two months unless you agree otherwise.

An employer can still refuse a flexible working request for a valid business reason, but it has to deal with it reasonably. Our article on whether your employer can still say no to hybrid work explains how that plays out in practice.

Flexibility means something very concrete

For one person, the most important thing might be starting work an hour earlier. For another, it is working from home on certain days, swapping a shift or being able to leave quickly in an emergency.

That is why flexible working is increasingly about more than "you can work from home".

Predictable rotas matter too, as does having a say in your hours and avoiding last-minute schedule changes. Further rights to more predictable hours are planned under the Employment Rights Act 2025.

This is especially important in retail, manufacturing, logistics, hospitality and healthcare: anywhere the work cannot simply be moved onto a laptop.

Employers do not have to solve everything

Not every company can offer hybrid working, and not every role allows hours to be moved around freely.

But even small organisational changes can make a difference:

• publishing rotas earlier,
• letting staff swap shifts with each other,
• more flexible start times,
• clear rules on remote working,
• scheduling meetings at times that do not clash with school pick-ups or other caring duties.

In practice, it is often not about a spectacular benefit, but about a more predictable day. Some employers are going further and testing compressed hours, as described in our article on the four-day week.

It can make a difference when choosing a job

If caring responsibilities affect such a large share of the workforce, the way working time is organised will increasingly be one of the factors in choosing an employer.

For some candidates, the difference between two similarly paid job offers may come down to the rota, hybrid working or flexible hours.

Employers who clearly describe these arrangements in the job advert can reach people who would otherwise not even apply.

So when you browse vacancies, look not only at the pay and the duties, but also at how the work is organised.

The new reality of the labour market

Working carers are not a niche group. They are a situation that already affects millions of people.

An employee is increasingly not just an employee. After the shift ends, they may be a parent, a carer for an older person or someone who regularly helps a relative who needs support.

That is why conversations about the labour market will increasingly be about more than salaries and the number of vacancies.

An equally important question will be: does the way the work is organised fit the life that begins when it ends?

Looking for hours that fit around caring? Browse current part-time jobs on Jober.