Working with participants - lessons from ReAct: focus on working carers

The Restart prime providers are sponsoring the ERSA conference in November 2025. In the conference run up, the ReAct partnership is releasing a series of briefing papers highlighting key research from the collaboration and how the insights can inform solutions to Get Britain Working.

Restart has supported a wide range of participants over the last few years, and the Restart Prime Providers have developed a deep understanding of what works to personalise employment support services to varied groups. The ReAct partnership has conducted research into many of the key groups that engage with Restart, with research topics, amongst others, covering:

• Working Carers: Helping carers gets into work, and stay in work
• Neurodiversity, Jobsearch and Work
• Supporting Highly Qualified Restart Participants
• Providing effective ESOL support
• Supporting Restart participants into Self-employment
• ReAct and Timewise Change Agent Programme

This briefing paper presents key findings from the ReAct Working Carers report and looks at them in the light of the policy objectives in the Get Britain Working white paper. The research with this group was born out of an acknowledgment that due to an ageing population and a combination of other socio-demographic factors, unpaid carers are one of the fastest growing demographics within the UK working age population.[1] In a survey of over 13,000 carers and former carers carried out in 2022 by a leading UK charity, 62% said they worried about burnout from juggling work and care, and 65% had passed up work opportunities because of caring.[2]

Without carer friendly employment support and workplace policies, working carers are likely to reduce their working hours, take jobs that are less demanding, or to leave the labour market altogether.[3] Previous evidence suggested that carers are less likely to be in paid employment, less likely to work full-time than the rest of the population and can find it difficult to re-enter work once caring has finished, an issue which worsens the longer carers are out of the workforce. [4]

This briefing paper summarises the research conducted by the ReAct partnership and provides actionable insights for policymakers and employment support providers and employers to better support unpaid carers into sustainable employment.

The ReAct Partnership is an industry-led, active collaboration to support a continuous improvement community in the Restart programme through action research, shared and iterative learning, and the development of applied, evidence-based resources. The Partnership is co-funded by the eight ‘prime providers’ for the Restart programme — FedCap Employment, AKG, G4S, Ingeus, Maximus, Reed, Seetec and Serco — and is being managed by the Institute of Employment Studies (IES), working alongside the Institute for Employability Professionals (IEP) and the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA).