State of Caring Survey 2026

All about caring
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Our annual State of Caring survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8GYW78M) is now open. This will help us to build the most comprehensive picture of unpaid carers’ lives in the UK. Are you able to share your experiences?

Each year thousands of carers and former carers complete the State of Caring survey. Their insights and experiences provide a vital source of evidence not only for Carers UK, but for many other organisations including local charities and carers groups, the Government, local authorities, health and social care services.

Last year carers’ responses to the survey helped Carers UK to:

  • call for reform of Carer’s Allowance overpayments, contributing to Government action to review thousands of cases

  • respond to the Government review of Personal Independence Payments, highlighting the importance of this benefit to carers

  • submit evidence to the State Pension Review by demonstrating the long-term financial impact of caring

  • contribute to the Government-commissioned review of adult social care in England, led by Baroness Casey

  • set out our vision for the NHS and how it can better support carers

  • continue campaigning for paid Carer’s Leave to help carers remain in employment

  • publish reports and policy briefings on issues including the cost of caring and the reasons carers leave paid employment.

The findings were also featured in local press and on national television programmes including BBC Breakfast and Good Morning Britain, helping to raise awareness of caring among millions of people across the UK.

The findings from this year’s survey will continue to play a vital role in shaping Carers UK’s campaigns, research and policy work.

If you would like to take part, please complete the survey by 9 August.

We recognise that caring affects many areas of life, including health, finances, work and wellbeing. To understand these experiences properly, we have asked a number of detailed questions, and the survey may take around 30 minutes to complete.

You can skip some questions if you have limited time. If you don’t get to the end of the survey, your responses will be saved and sent to us, even if you don’t finish.

We know carers are busy and your time is valuable, so we very much appreciate everyone who takes the time to get involved. We read every response and will be sharing the results later in the year.

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I spent ages filling it in, then realised that I’d given a wrong answer. Clicked the back button and it all disappeared forever.
Most carers are time poor and frankly, it was far too long anyhow.
Please can questions next year be reconsidered?
Most campaigns I’ve been involved with over the years have specific targets on a small number of issues. Alternatively, maybe do sections to the questionnaire every 3 or 6 months, which can then be brought together to cover an entire year?

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@CUK_Membership_Team , already done. I just hope I haven’t mucked it up.

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@bowlingbun , oh dear. Something similar happened to me recently regarding a shopping survey. Nothing worse then doing a survey, then you click to wrong button and it’s all gone. Very annoying. :expressionless_face: :grimacing:

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The questionnaire focuses a lot on work related matters. Yes, it’s important, but frankly not for the pensioners among us. Perhaps the employment question should come earlier and be used to knock out the work related questions? Us oldies don’t have the remaining time to work our way through the whole thing only to find a high percentage of irrelevant questions :rofl:

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@CUK_Membership_Team @Michael_CarersUK

I appreciate the need for CarersUK to have research data to support policy campaigns and drive change, but many of this years questions were leading and skewed towards employment. I could almost see the press release using the questions

As a former market researcher, this didn’t look like research it was more about obtaining quantitative soundbites.

Instead of trying to cram everything into one questionnaire - why not start an ongoing longitudinal panel-questionnaire with different cohorts of carers? so you can have more in-depth specifics, quant data and qualitative statements on e.g. employment, and see changes over time for that cohort

Or if you stay with a large questionnaire, create one that has links to jump to only applicable sections e.g. if say yes to retired, and not seeking employment all the employment section is skipped.

I’d be interested in answering a questionnaire based on questions by current and former carers, for carers rather than for policy changes. Perhaps asking what questions we’d ask can provide CUK with grassroots input rather than trying to design a questionnaire to sway current policy or react to potential politics.

You could even use this forum - ask us for questions or Create a thread that asks us a question that you want to use as research…

I appreciate everything Carers UK does for us.Thanks for your consideration

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Thanks to everyone who has already completed the State of Caring survey. Thanks also for your feedback and suggestions for improving the survey for next year. I will pass all of your comments onto our Policy and Public Affairs team who coordinate the survey.

Wishing you all well

Michael

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As Victoria has so much knowledge on this subject, maybe CUK could take advantage of her expertise? I would be happy to review anything as a disabled carer with arthritic hands!

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@Charlesh47 . I read the survey again in my inbox. Looking at it now, some questions are ridiculous. Also, they don’t talk about the mental impact much either.

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