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Staff benefits for social workers

Our comprehensive and competitive support and benefits package reflects our desire to nurture our social workers because we know the work can be demanding.

Social work salaries

Our social worker salaries start at £32,527 for Newly Qualified Social Workers rising to £39,215 (Grade 11) on successful completion of your Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE). This includes a market supplement on the basis that you remain in your team or move to another frontline team. Senior social workers and managers start at £46,998.

For full details, see our social work roles and vacancies.

Help with your relocation

We can offer up to £8,000 towards the cost of moving house if you’re making a move that’s more than 20 miles (subject to our relocation policy).

This includes support from one of our social work teams who can provide you with invaluable local knowledge of housing, schools and leisure activities.

Travel benefits

  • Car leasing scheme (not available to Newly Qualified Social Workers – minimum time in service applies)
  • Season ticket loan scheme
  • Vehicle loan scheme
  • Bicycle loan scheme
  • Interest-free loan package for driving lessons.

Join a dynamic and digital organisation

We’ll provide you with the equipment, including laptops and iPhones, to enable you to work smarter and connect with your colleagues digitally.

For example, you can ‘meet’ with colleagues via Microsoft Teams or share and work on documents together with a colleague at the other end of the county.

Although we believe in offering maximum flexibility, we also work hard to retain a strong team identity.

Work more flexible hours

To improve work-life balance we offer a nine-day fortnight. The hours when you are working will, of course, need to meet the needs of your team and be agreed with your line manager.

Career break scheme

You can apply for a career break of 6 to 12 months after two years’ continuous service.

We’re family friendly

We provide additional leave options for maternity, paternity, dependency and parental leave.

Staff discounts

We offer staff a range of discounts on holidays, shopping and special promotions as well as tax free childcare and kids clubs.

For details about our staff discounts and the local government pension scheme, see Employee benefits.

Counselling and mindfulness

We know that social work is very demanding. In addition to excellent support and supervision from your manager, you’ll also have access to mindfulness and counselling services.

We support all our social work staff with comprehensive mindfulness training to help you cope when the going gets tough and strengthen your resilience.

We offer our staff a 24-hours a day, 365-days a year counselling service. All calls are answered by a fully-trained and qualified counsellor, who will provide initial emotional support, and can then arrange face-to-face counselling as appropriate.