Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) male and (b) female social workers were employed in each of the last five years.

The department only collects the numbers of child and family social workers employed by local authorities in England. Data on the gender of social workers was only collected on a mandatory basis for the first time in 2017. Therefore, there is only one year of data available on the gender of child and family social workers.

The figures that are available can be found in the ‘Children’s social work workforce’ publication. This can be accessed at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childrens-social-work-workforce-2017.

As of 30 September 2017, 26,310 females and 4,360 males were employed as child and family social workers by local authorities in England.