Can You Foster If You Work? An Honest Answer

You have a job you mostly like, a mortgage that needs paying, and a spare room that has been empty since your last lodger moved out. Somewhere at the back of your mind sits the thought that you could look after a child who needs a safe place to be. Then the practical question stops everything: could you do this without giving up work? Here is what fostering really takes out of a week, which jobs sit alongside it comfortably and which do not, and how the money, the tax and the childcare rules work as at August 2026.

Please note: general information about England, not personal or financial advice. Figures are correct at August 2026. Check gov.uk on flexible working, gov.uk on free childcare if you are working and HMRC’s helpsheet HS236 for your own position.

The short answer, and the honest one

No law says a foster carer cannot have a job. There is no hours limit in the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011, and none in the national minimum standards either. What an assessing social worker and a fostering panel want to know is narrower and much more practical. If a child arrives at nine on a Tuesday evening, who is at home? If the school rings at eleven in the morning because a seven-year-old has thrown a chair, who goes? Availability is the test, not the number of hours on your contract.

Some agencies answer this with a breezy “of course you can work” and move straight on to the application form. That does applicants no favours. There are jobs that genuinely do not fit around caring for a five-year-old on your own, and it is kinder to work that out in week one than in month nine of the assessment to become a foster carer.

What actually goes in the diary

Fostering has a fixed calendar of meetings on top of the ordinary business of raising a child, and most of it lands squarely in office hours. Our article on what fostering involves day to day covers the rhythm of it. These are the commitments with dates attached:

• a placement planning meeting within five days of a child moving in
• regular supervision meetings with your supervising social worker, plus less formal home visits through the year
• at least one unannounced visit from your supervising social worker, which is a legal requirement
• the child’s review meetings: the first within 20 working days of them coming into care, the second within three months of that, then at least every six months
• a Personal Education Plan meeting every school term
• family time sessions with the child’s birth family, often on weekday afternoons, and often needing someone to drive there and back
• training, including evidencing the Training, Support and Development Standards within 12 months of approval (18 months for family and friends carers)

Then there is everything else: the school run, the GP, the dentist, the CAMHS appointment that finally came through after eight months of waiting and falls on a Wednesday at 2pm.

Which jobs fit, and which really do not

Term-time work sits beautifully with fostering. Teaching assistants, school office staff, midday supervisors, anyone who finishes when the bell goes and has the school holidays free. So does part-time work that ends by half past two, self-employed work you schedule yourself, and shift patterns where a partner covers the days you are out. Being close to the child’s school helps more than almost anything else. Twenty minutes away means you can be there when you are needed.

What is harder: a full-time role with an hour and a half commute each way, no scope to leave your desk, and no second adult in the house. With a settled sixteen-year-old at sixth form, that can work. With a four-year-old, it will not, and a good agency will tell you so.

In a household with two adults, one working full time while the other is the main carer is a straightforward arrangement and a common one. The person who works still goes through the assessment, still gets to know the child, still turns up to the annual review. They are just not the one waiting by the phone.

The age of the child changes the answer completely

This is the part most people miss. Fostering a baby and holding down a full-time job outside the home do not go together, unless there is another adult at home during the day. Babies need someone there for all of it. GLF is actively recruiting carers who want to look after babies, and it is worth knowing that a baby under two can sleep in a cot in your own room, so a spare bedroom is not always the barrier people assume.

School-age children give you a window from nine to three, thirty-nine weeks a year, with thirteen weeks of holidays to cover. Teenagers are more independent day to day but their crises are less predictable. A young person who goes missing at two in the morning, or a call from a police station, does not wait for a convenient point in your working week.

The money, plainly

Most people asking whether they can keep working are really asking whether they can afford not to. So here are the numbers we pay at Greater London Fostering:

• £479.50 a week for a child under 11
• £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over
• an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week more on some placements, depending on the child’s needs

It is paid per child and only while a child is placed with you. One fixed weekly fee covers both the allowance for the child and the reward for you, with no separate one-off payments for birthdays or Christmas, so you always know what is coming in.

Foster carers are self-employed. You are not an employee of the agency, which is why you register with HMRC and file a self assessment return. Qualifying Care Relief means most carers pay little or no tax on their fostering income, and our guide to tax for foster carers works through an example. For the 2026/27 tax year the relief is £20,440 per household, plus £435 a week for each child under 11 and £515 a week for each child aged 11 or over. Add those together and compare the total against what you received. If your fostering income is lower, there is no tax to pay on it.

One thing worth checking if you are giving up paid work: your National Insurance record. Foster carers who do not pay Class 2 contributions can apply for Class 3 credits using form CF411A, which protects your state pension for the years you are caring.

What your employer has to do, and what it does not

Every employee can request flexible working from their first day in the job, and the employer has to deal with the request reasonably. It is a right to ask, not a right to get. A written request explaining the pattern you need is a strong starting point.

Time off for dependants covers emergencies you could not have foreseen, such as a child suddenly falling ill. A foster child living in your household counts. It is unpaid unless your contract says otherwise, and it does not stretch to planned commitments like a Personal Education Plan meeting you have known about for a fortnight.

There is no statutory fostering leave in the UK. Adoption leave does not apply to ordinary fostering. Some employers do far better than the legal minimum and have a fostering friendly policy, sometimes with paid days for settling a new child in, so it is always worth asking HR what already exists before you assume the answer is no.

Childcare help you might not know about

Working parents in England can get 30 hours of funded childcare a week for 38 weeks of the year, for children from nine months to school age. Foster carers can access it too, which surprises a lot of people. The conditions are specific: you need to be in paid work outside your fostering role with adjusted net income under £100,000, both of you in a two-carer household, and the childcare has to be agreed as part of the child’s care plan. You cannot apply through the usual online service, so speak to the child’s social worker and your local authority instead.

You won’t have to do this alone

Nobody works this out on their own at GLF. Your supervising social worker helps you map the meetings against your shifts before a child is ever placed, and matching takes your working pattern into account rather than treating it as an inconvenience. There is someone on the end of the phone out of hours, and a team small enough that the person answering knows who you are. Ofsted inspected us in July 2025 and rated us Outstanding in all three judgements.

If your working life is the thing standing between you and an application, tell us about it. We would rather have that conversation than lose you to a question nobody answered.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to give up my job to become a foster carer?

Not necessarily. There is no legal limit on working hours for foster carers. What matters is whether you can be available for the child you are approved for, including school hours, meetings and emergencies. Many carers work part-time, term-time or from home, and in two-adult households one person often works full time.

Will my employer have to give me time off for fostering meetings?

There is no statutory fostering leave. You can request flexible working from your first day in a job, and you have a right to unpaid time off for emergencies involving a dependant, which includes a foster child living with you. Planned meetings such as Personal Education Plans are not covered, so most carers arrange those through flexible working or annual leave.

Can I foster a baby if I work?

Realistically only if there is another adult at home during the day, or if you can care for the baby yourself full time. GLF is recruiting carers for babies specifically, and a baby under two can sleep in a cot in your room, so you may not need a spare bedroom.

How much will I be paid, and is it taxed?

GLF pays £479.50 a week for a child under 11 and £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over, per child and only while a child is placed, with an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week more for higher-needs placements. Foster carers are self-employed and Qualifying Care Relief means most pay little or no tax on their fostering income.