Live-in Carer Jobs in London

What is a live-in carer job really like?

You live in someone else's home. You share their kitchen, learn how they like their tea and which chair is theirs, and become part of the household for weeks at a time. For the person you support, it means staying at home instead of moving into a care home.

That closeness is the best part of the work and the hardest. You get to know one person properly, which is rarely possible on a visiting round, but you are away from your own home and routine, and your workplace is somebody's living room.

What does a live-in carer do day to day?

Every placement follows a written care plan, agreed with the client and their family after Jackie, our registered manager, has carried out a home assessment. A typical day might include:

• Helping the person get up, wash, dress and start the day: personal care done with patience and dignity
• Medication support as set out in the care plan, recorded every time
• Cooking proper meals, often eating together, and keeping an eye on fluids
• Housework, laundry, changing beds and keeping floors and stairs safe
• Shopping, prescriptions, and going along to GP and hospital appointments
• Getting out: a walk to the park, the library, church, a café, a visit to family
• Conversation and company, which for some clients matters as much as anything else
• Writing clear daily notes and telling us promptly when something changes

Clients include older people living with dementia, people with physical disabilities or sensory impairments, people settling back home after a hospital stay, and some who are nearing the end of life. Placements with more complex needs come with extra training before you start.

Breaks, rest and sleep: what the rules say

Living in does not mean being on duty around the clock. The working time rules on GOV.UK give workers:

• A rest break of at least 20 uninterrupted minutes when you work more than 6 hours in a day
• Daily rest of 11 hours between working days
• Weekly rest of an uninterrupted 24 hours each week, or 48 hours each fortnight
• Paid holiday of 5.6 weeks a year (28 days for someone working five days a week), as set out under holiday entitlement

The rules have exceptions worth knowing before you take a live-in job. The 48-hour average working week does not apply to some jobs, including those where 24-hour staffing is required and domestic servants in a private household. Regulation 21 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 also lets daily rest, weekly rest and rest breaks be varied where work needs continuity of service, such as care in residential settings. Where that happens, regulation 24 says the employer must, wherever possible, give you an equivalent period of compensatory rest. Ask any employer, us included, to put in writing how your hours, breaks and time off are worked out.

Nights matter too. A live-in carer needs a proper night's sleep to do the job safely. If a client needs help most nights, one live-in carer is the wrong arrangement. We tell the family so and talk through other options; we do not expect you to work through the night.

How do live-in rotas work?

Live-in work is generally arranged in blocks: a period living in, then a period at home while another carer covers the placement. How long each block lasts varies from one employer and one placement to the next, and you will see many different patterns on job boards. We agree yours with you before you start, based on what the client needs and what you can sustain, and we plan cover for your time off and holidays before you start.

Changeover means a handover with the outgoing carer: changes in health or mood, appointments coming up, where things are kept. A good handover keeps the care consistent.

The room and the home

You will have your own bedroom with somewhere to keep your belongings, and access to the kitchen and bathroom. In London that might be a mansion-block flat in Kensington or a Victorian terrace in Lewisham with one steep staircase. We see every home at the assessment, before any carer is placed, and if the arrangements for you are not right we raise it with the family. How meals and the household routine work for you is agreed before you start.

Because you move in, placements can be in any London borough, so where you live matters much less than it does for visiting work. You will need to get yourself and a suitcase to the placement at changeover, by Tube, bus or rail.

Who suits live-in care work?

Experience helps, and many live-in carers come to it from visiting care or a care home, but people who have looked after a parent or partner at home often understand the job well. What we look for:

• Steady kindness, including at the end of a long week, and being content in your own company
• Respect for the fact that it is their home and their way of doing things
• Comfort with intimate personal care, or willingness to learn it with support
• Good enough English to read a care plan, talk with the person and their family, and write clear notes
• The confidence to ring us when something is wrong, and the sense to do it early

The checks we must carry out by law

As a CQC-registered provider we must hold certain information about everyone we employ, under regulation 19 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Before you start:

• Enhanced DBS check with the adults' barred list. Personal care for adults is regulated activity wherever it happens, including the person's own home (DBS guidance for adult social care roles). If your certificate is on the DBS Update Service, we can check it online with your consent. You have to join within 30 days of the certificate being issued, and it costs £15 a year.
• Right to work in the UK, by share code or eligible documents (how to prove your right to work).
• References and a full work history, with gaps explained and evidence of conduct in any earlier care work.
• Photo ID and proof of any qualifications you tell us about.

If you are overseas: from 22 July 2025 the care worker visa route closed to new applications from abroad, so we can only consider people already in the UK with the right to work here.

Training and the Care Certificate

New carers work through the Care Certificate, the 16 standards from Skills for Care that set out what new health and social care workers in England should know and do, updated in March 2025. It is not itself a qualification, though an accredited Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate is built on the same standards. If you completed it elsewhere, bring the evidence.

Live-in work then needs training matched to the person: moving and handling, medication, dementia awareness, and anything specific to their condition. You will not be sent to a placement that needs skills you have not yet been trained in. Experienced live-in carers can go on to support clients with more complex needs, take on senior roles, or move across to supported living.

Live-in, visiting or supported living?

• Live-in care (this page): you stay in one client's home for a block, anywhere in London.
• Visiting home care: set calls in different homes through the day, in south-east London near our Lewisham office. See carer jobs in London.
• Supported living: shifts at our homes in Whitton, Kingston upon Thames and Uxbridge. See support worker jobs in London.

How to apply for a live-in carer job

1. Get in touch. Use the contact form and choose “A job with you”, email info@jnpsidonasupportservices.co.uk, call 0203 375 4047 or WhatsApp 07446 010486. A short message is fine.
2. Tell us what helps us match you. Your care experience, whether you have done live-in work, how long you can live in at a time, when you could start, and any needs you are comfortable with or not (for example, a dog in the house, or caring for a man or a woman).
3. A conversation, usually with Jackie, about the work and about you.
4. Checks and training. DBS, right to work and references, and the training your first placement needs.
5. Matching and introduction. We tell you about the person, their home and their routine before you agree to go.

More about us as an employer is on our work for us page.

Live-in care jobs by borough

Borough guides: Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, Camden, Barnet, Richmond upon Thames and Lewisham, where our office is.

• Carer jobs in London
• Support worker jobs
• Our live-in care service
• Care for elderly parents
• Respite care
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Questions about live-in carer jobs