Men in Fostering: Why We Need More Male Foster Carers

If you have ever wondered whether fostering is really something a man does, that is a fair question to ask. Most people picture a foster carer as a woman in her fifties, and the picture is not entirely wrong. But children in care need men in their lives too, and some of them need one urgently. Here is what the national figures show, what a male carer brings, and the awkward parts nobody mentions in the leaflets.

Please note: This is general information about fostering in England, not personal advice about your own circumstances. The eligibility rules here are correct as at August 2026 and summarised from gov.uk/becoming-foster-parent. The national figures come from Ofsted’s Fostering in England 2024 to 2025 and cover the year to 31 March 2025. GLF’s payment rates are correct as at August 2026.

What the national figures show

Fostering in England is shrinking while the need for it is not. Ofsted counts every approved fostering household once a year, and the direction of travel has been the same for four years running. That matters more than any slogan about heroes, because it is the reason a social worker somewhere in London will spend this afternoon ringing round for a home that does not exist yet. These figures are for England at 31 March 2025.

• 42,190 fostering households in England, down 1 per cent on the previous year and 7 per cent since 2021
• 56,345 approved mainstream foster carers
• 54,820 children living in foster care, which is 67 per cent of the 81,770 children in care away from home
• 8,290 applications to foster received during the year, and 4,115 households newly approved
• The Fostering Network estimates that around 5,000 more fostering families are needed in England

You will see figures quoted elsewhere for how many of those carers are men. We are not going to give you one, because Ofsted does not publish a gender breakdown and we would only be guessing. What we can say from our own work is that men are well represented in fostering households and thinly represented as the carer taking the lead, and that the men we do have get asked for by name.

Why children in care need men who stay

Some children arrive having learned that men shout, or leave, or simply are not there. That lesson does not get unlearned by anyone explaining it. It gets unlearned slowly, by a child watching a man make the tea, lose at cards without sulking and still be in the kitchen on Thursday. A boy who has only ever seen anger modelled by a man needs living proof that a grown man can be annoyed about the washing-up and nothing frightening happens next.

A child who sees adults in a household sharing the cooking and the difficult conversations is also picking up a working template for family life, and for what they are allowed to expect from men later on. None of that is about a man being better at anything. It is about the range of people a child gets to be loved by.

What being a role model looks like on a wet Tuesday

The phrase “male role model” gets used so often that it has stopped meaning much. In practice it is very ordinary and quite repetitive, which is the point. Children who have lived with unpredictability read consistency as safety long before they can say so.

• Being physically around and emotionally around, which are not the same thing
• Handling your own frustration in the open, so a child sees an adult get cross and stay safe
• Using your authority sparingly and predictably, rather than by volume
• Taking your share of the routine jobs: the packed lunch, the wash basket and the bins
• Sitting with homework you do not fully understand and staying cheerful about it
• Turning up at the school play, or standing on a cold touchline on a Sunday morning
• One-to-one time that belongs to that child, even if it is twenty minutes and a puzzle

Plenty of men arrive believing that patience and comfort are things you either have or you do not. They are skills. They are learned much the same way as anything else you have got good at, and the Skills to Foster course you take before panel is where most people start.

The parts men find hardest

We would rather say this plainly than pretend it away. Men in fostering do get treated as the second carer, and it happens in small papercuts rather than in anything you could put in a complaint. Post arrives addressed to your partner. A professional at a meeting looks past you to ask how the child has settled. Some men also find that the public reads a man caring for a child he is not related to with a suspicion never applied to women, and that stings.

Our position is that this is the agency’s problem to fix, not yours to quietly absorb. If a letter or a review meeting treats you as an accessory to your partner, tell your supervising social worker and expect it to change. You are a full member of the team around the child, with the same training and the same say. The practical fixes are dull and effective: get your name on the correspondence, and find a group of other male carers so you are not the only one raising it.

Time is the other honest difficulty. Fitting supervision visits and training around a job takes planning, and it is one of the most common worries men raise at first enquiry. It is usually solvable, and we have written about it in more detail in our piece on whether you can foster while holding down a job.

Safer caring works in your favour

Every fostering household has a safer caring policy, written with your supervising social worker and updated as things change. It sets out the specific risks for the child living with you and how everyone keeps them safe. It also looks, deliberately, at the situations that could leave you exposed, and agrees in advance how you will handle them: the car, bedrooms and bathrooms, physical contact, tone of voice and what you do when you are angry.

Men sometimes read all this as a sign of being mistrusted. Read it the other way round. Agreeing beforehand that you do not sit in a bedroom with the door closed, and that a hug after a scraped knee is absolutely fine, takes the guesswork out of the day it matters. It takes a few weeks to feel natural. After that, most carers say it is what lets them relax and be affectionate, because the boundaries are settled.

Do you actually qualify?

Probably, and more easily than you think. The legal bar is low, and most of what stops men enquiring is a rule they have invented for themselves. These are the real requirements as at August 2026.

• You must be 18 or over. Government guidance notes that most fostering services set their own minimum at 21; at GLF the requirement is 18 or over
• You need the right to work in the UK
• You need a spare bedroom for a child aged three or over. A baby can sleep in a cot in your room, and we are actively recruiting baby-only carers
• You can be single, married, living with a partner, divorced or widowed. Being a single man is not a barrier, as we set out in our article on fostering on your own
• You can rent your home. You do not need to own it, and there is no upper age limit
• Health conditions and old convictions are discussed rather than treated as an automatic no. Our foster carer requirements page goes through this in full

Pay is a fair question and we answer it straight, which is more than some agencies manage. GLF pays one fixed weekly fee per child while that child is placed with you, covering both the child’s allowance and your reward. As at August 2026 that is £479.50 a week for a child under 11, and £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over. Some placements attract an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week more where a child’s needs are higher. There are no separate one-off payments for birthdays or Christmas, because they sit inside the weekly figure. The detail is on our foster carer pay page.

You won’t have to do this alone

Nobody expects you to arrive knowing how to sit with a distressed nine-year-old. We are a small agency and work like one. You get a named supervising social worker who knows your household properly rather than as a case number, someone reachable out of hours when a Saturday goes wrong, and other carers who have had the week you are having. If you would rather hear it from a carer than from us, one of our male carers wrote about his own start in fostering in Men Who Foster.

Ofsted inspected us from 21 to 25 July 2025 and rated Greater London Fostering Outstanding in all three judgements, including how well children are helped and protected. We mention it because the support you get is not something we are asking you to take on trust. It is completely normal to have questions, and asking them costs you nothing.

Frequently asked questions

Can a man foster on his own?

Yes. Single men are approved as foster carers, and some children are matched specifically because a male carer is what they need. You will be asked how you would manage the practical side alone, including who steps in when you are unwell. That is a planning conversation, not a test you can fail.

Will I be treated as the secondary carer if I foster with a partner?

You should not be, and if it happens we want to hear about it. Both carers in a household are assessed and approved together, and both have the same standing in the team around the child. Tell your supervising social worker if correspondence or meetings are treating you as an afterthought.

Do I have to give up my job?

Not necessarily. Whether you can keep working depends on the age and needs of the child and on how flexible your hours are, and plenty of our carers combine the two. It is one of the first things to talk through at enquiry, before you make any decisions about work.

How much would I be paid?

As at August 2026, 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, for as long as that child is placed with you. Higher-needs placements can attract an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week on top. It is one weekly figure covering the child’s allowance and your reward, with no separate one-off payments.