Carer and Home Care Jobs in London

Which home care jobs in London do we recruit for?

Each kind of care at home job suits different people, depending mostly on where you live and whether you can stay in a client's home.

• Visiting home care (care assistant). You visit people in their own homes for set calls during the day: helping someone get up and washed, giving lunch, prompting medication, settling them for the night. Our only office is on Lewisham High Street, so our visiting work is in south-east London. Whether we have clients near you depends on who we support at the time, so tell us where you live and how far you can travel.
• Live-in care. You move into a client's home for a set period, with your own bedroom, and support one person or a couple. Placements can be in any London borough, so where you live matters much less. See live-in carer jobs in London for how breaks, time off and changeovers work.
• Supported living (support worker). You work at one of our three supported living homes in Whitton (Twickenham), Kingston upon Thames and Uxbridge, helping adults with everyday living. That role has its own page: support worker jobs in London.

What does a care assistant do in someone's home?

Home care is a long way from a hospital ward. You are a guest in someone's house, often alone with them, and the job is to help them carry on living the way they want to. On a typical visiting round that means:

• Personal care: washing, showering, dressing, shaving, oral care and helping with the toilet or continence pads, done in a way that keeps the person's dignity
• Medication support: prompting or helping someone take tablets as set out in their care plan, and recording it accurately on the medication record
• Making meals and drinks, and noticing when someone isn't eating
• Moving and handling safely, sometimes with equipment such as a hoist, standing aid or stairlift, after you have been trained to use it
• Light housework, laundry and shopping
• Company and conversation, which for some clients is the most important part of the visit
• Writing clear notes after each visit and reporting changes: a new bruise, confusion that wasn't there yesterday, a fall, a missed meal

The people we support include adults living with dementia, physical disabilities and sensory impairments, people coming home from hospital, and some who are nearing the end of life. Some have more complex needs that call for extra training before you support them.

London adds its own practical side. Many south-east London homes are Victorian terraces with one steep staircase and the bathroom upstairs, or flats in blocks where the lift is the only easy way up. Plenty of London carers get about by bus, Overground and rail without a car, so tell us whether you drive; it changes which clients we can sensibly offer you.

Can I become a carer with no experience?

Yes, you can apply to us without having worked in care. Plenty of good carers start after looking after a parent, raising a family, or working in hospitality or retail, where they learned to be patient and reliable and to talk to anyone. What we look for:

• You are kind without being patronising, and you treat the person as the expert on their own life
• You turn up when you say you will. A missed call can mean someone goes without their breakfast or their tablets
• You are comfortable with intimate personal care, or willing to learn it with support
• You can read a care plan and write clear notes in English
• You speak up when something seems wrong

Whether we can take on someone new to care depends on what we need at the time, and we will tell you honestly. If we can, you won't be sent out alone until you have been trained and assessed as competent.

The checks every care employer must carry out

As a CQC-registered provider we are bound by regulation 19 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, which sets out the information we must confirm about everyone we employ before they start. Immigration law separately requires a right to work check. These checks take time, and no reputable agency can skip them:

• Enhanced DBS check with the adults' barred list. Providing personal care to adults is regulated activity, so care workers can be asked for this level of check wherever the care happens, including a person's own home (DBS guidance on adult social care roles). If your certificate is on the DBS Update Service, tell us; with your consent we can check its status online. You have to join within 30 days of a certificate being issued, and it costs £15 a year.
• Right to work in the UK. We must see proof before you start, either through a share code from the government's online service or with your documents (how to prove your right to work). Any limit on your hours, for example on a student visa, is recorded.
• References and work history. A full employment history with any gaps explained, evidence of your conduct in any previous care work, and the reason that work ended.
• Identity and qualifications. Photo ID, and proof of any care qualifications you mention.

If someone offers you care work "cash in hand" without these checks, walk away. It leaves you without protection, and it leaves the people you look after at risk.

A note for anyone applying from abroad: since 22 July 2025, employers can no longer sponsor new care workers from overseas, after the Home Office closed the care worker visa route to overseas recruitment. To apply to us you need to be in the UK already with the right to work here.

The Care Certificate, training and progression

If you are new to care, you will work through the Care Certificate, the 16 standards published by Skills for Care for workers who are new to health and social care in England. They cover the basics of the job, including your role, duty of care, person-centred care, communication, privacy and dignity, fluids and nutrition, mental health and dementia awareness, adult safeguarding, basic life support, and infection prevention and control. The standards were updated in March 2025 and now include awareness of learning disability and autism.

The Care Certificate is not a formal qualification, but there is now an accredited Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate built on the same 16 standards. If you have already completed the Care Certificate with another employer, bring the evidence and we will talk through what still needs assessing.

Beyond induction, the training follows the clients you support: moving and handling, medication, dementia awareness, and anything specific to a person's condition. People who stay in care can work towards senior carer roles, specialise in areas such as dementia or end-of-life care, or move into supported living. Tell us where you would like to go and we will be straight about what we can offer.

How to apply for a carer job with us

1. Get in touch. Use the contact form and choose “A job with you”, email your CV to info@jnpsidonasupportservices.co.uk, call 0203 375 4047 or WhatsApp 07446 010486. You don't need a polished CV.
2. Tell us the useful things. Where in London you live, whether you drive, the role you want (visiting, live-in or supported living), the days and hours you can actually work, and any care experience or training.
3. A conversation. If there is a good fit, we arrange a chat, usually with Jackie, the registered manager.
4. Checks and induction. We start the DBS, right to work and reference checks, and you begin the training you need.
5. Shadowing, then your own calls. You work alongside an experienced carer before supporting anyone alone.

More about us as an employer is on our work for us page. To see the work from the family's side, read what we offer, how our home care agency works and live-in care in London.

Care jobs near you

Our borough pages explain what visiting, live-in and supported living work looks like from where you live, including travel times. Start with care jobs in Lewisham, Greenwich, Bromley or Southwark, close to our office, or Kingston upon Thames for our supported living home there. The areas we serve page covers the rest of London.

Questions from people applying