Scotland's Chief Statistician today published Pre-school and Childcare Workforce Statistics 2009, which presents new statistics on childcare centres registered with the Care Commission, and childcare centre staff.
The main findings are:
The Childcare Workforce (Tables 1-5)
- The number of managers of Day-care and Pre-school education centres, together with the number of paid staff working directly with children in 2009 was 29,670. This figure is not directly comparable with 2008 (see background note 8).
- Fourteen per cent of the childcare workforce were managers ( Table 1).
- Ninety six per cent of the childcare workforce in 2009 were female ( Table 1), which was no change from 2008.
- Eighty four per cent of the childcare workforce had a childcare qualification, an increase of one percentage point on 2008. Similarly, the percentage of staff with a childcare qualification at SVQ level 2 or above increased by two percentage points to 82 per cent, and the percentage with a childcare qualification at SVQ level 3 or above increased by three percentage points to 73 per cent ( Table 2, Table 3).
- Childcare staff working in public sector centres were more qualified than those in the private or voluntary sectors. Eighty eight per cent of staff in public centres had childcare qualifications at SVQ level 3 or above, compared to 68 per cent in private and 57 per cent in voluntary centres ( Table 4).
- Sixty Four per cent of childcare staff who were managers had a qualification at SVQ level 4 or above ( Table 4).
- 1,190 staff of all levels were working towards a qualification at SVQ level 4 or equivalent. 940 staff of all levels were working towards a degree level qualification (or equivalent) ( Table 5). This compares to 1,320 staff of all levels working towards a SVQ level 4 or equivalent qualification, and 570 staff working towards a degree or equivalent level qualification in 2008.
The following tables are available:
Table 1: Characteristics of childcare workforce (excluding childminders), January 2009
Table 2: Qualifications of childcare workforce (excluding childminders), January 2009
Table 3: Qualifications of childcare workforce (excluding childminders), January 2008 and January 2009
Table 4: Highest childcare qualification by employment characteristic and age (excluding childminders), January 2009
Table 5: Number of staff working towards childcare qualifications (excluding childminders), January 2009