Demand for social workers in Scotland

[UrsiHun]

Hey there,
Having lived in Germany for 12 years I am now planning on returning to the UK. As I have never lived in Scotland I am not sure how to find out whether there's demand for social workers. The particular area of interest is child protection.

Is anyone here in that area themselves? I'll be grateful for any information.

Many thanks

I don't know about Scotland, but there's certainly a demand for them in England, just no funding to pay for them.

Most statutory social worker jobs are found only myjobscotland.com so worth looking there. Depends where you want to live but i’d say there’s always a reasonable amount of jobs available. Have you already qualified? It would depend where you qualified as to whether you would need your qualification assessed to make sure it’s ok to be registered with, as you need to register with the SSSC. Would check out their website to check.

You do realise Scotland isn't a town?
Maybe narrow it down to a smaller area.

Yes, I do realise that. And yet it is possible that there isn't a particular need in the country as a whole. I am also open to region specific answers.
How about Glasgow or Edinburgh?

I am not a social worker, so don't really know but I do have a friend who recently trained to be a social worker and hadn't been able to get a job (Glasgow area). But that might be because he doesn't have experience. He's now taken on the role of Child Protection Officer for a local sports club to add to his CV.

If you have experience, it might be different

Hey audweb, I'm about to qualify and my husband has extensive work experience.
I know the demand in England is great and I am wondering whether it's the same in Scotland (major cities).

I am a retired Social Worker in Scotland. I think there is still demand for social workers in most local authorities. In the LA i worked in you couldn't work in the child protection team straight from being newly qualified, you needed to have had general children and families experience in an area team first. Child protection work requires extra training that you don't get on your basic training. You also need to take into account that the legal system in Scotland is different to your country of study so you would need to learn all of that. S1 Jobs is a good website to have a look at for vacancies in Scotland.

Thank you very much for the helpful information. The Scottish system makes a lot of sense. I will look into appropriate positions for myself.
Best wishes from Hamburg

There are a number of posts available in North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire and applications close next week. I think Glasgow also had a big intake recently. There seems to be lots advertised and them none at all. I speak from looking at jobs in the last year too.

They are also recruiting nqsw's

Great, thanks!