There is no building to value, so a buyer is pricing your carers, your clients and your contracts.
What that means in practice: how many hours you deliver and whether that number is going up, who pays for those hours and at what rate, how long your carers stay, how quickly you can staff a new package, and whether the coordination still runs through you.
Two agencies delivering the same hours can be worth very different amounts. An agency with settled staff, a healthy share of privately funded clients and a manager who runs it without you will attract competing buyers. One delivering the same hours through constant recruitment and the owner’s own effort will attract one low offer.
We track every registered home care service in the UK along with the owner behind it, including the ones CQC has never rated. That is roughly half the market, and knowing which half changes how a buyer prices you.
What is your agency worth? Try the free valuation tool →The market
A huge market, delivered from thousands of small offices.
Care delivered in people’s own homes is one of the largest parts of UK social care, and it is growing faster than residential care because it is what people say they want and what councils increasingly commission. It is also strikingly fragmented. Most registered services are run by owners with one or two branches, which is why groups grow by buying good local agencies rather than opening against them.
registered home care services in our own data
owners identified behind them, not just the companies
have never been rated by CQC, and we know which ones
Current conditions
What the market looks like right now.
The last two years have been defined by two things: demand and workforce. Hours commissioned keep rising, private-pay demand keeps growing, and the constraint on most agencies is staffing rather than work. Wage rises have pushed costs up faster than most council fee rates have moved, which squeezes agencies that depend on framework hours, while changes to the visa rules for care workers have made overseas recruitment far harder than it was.
For sellers the picture is better than those pressures suggest. Consolidation has carried on through all of it, franchise resales remain active, and buyers are paying properly for agencies with settled staff and a healthy private mix, precisely because those agencies are hard to build from scratch in this labour market. The gap between well-run agencies and the rest is widening, and buyers price that gap.
“An agency with settled staff and a healthy private mix is exactly what buyers cannot build from scratch right now.”
Market conditions
Home care is consolidating, and it rewards the prepared.
Demand is demographic and delivery is local, so groups grow by buying well-run local agencies rather than opening from scratch. Franchise resales, regional groups building density and investor-backed buyers entering the sector all want the same thing: clean registration, settled staff, and an owner whose departure will not take the knowledge of the business with them. Owners who can show that get several buyers competing. Owners who cannot tend to get one offer with a long payment tail attached.
registered home care services in our own data
owners identified behind them, not just the companies
have never been rated by CQC, and we know which ones
Valuation
What moves the value of a home care agency.
Every one of these can be improved in the year or two before a sale, and in home care the staffing ones move the number most.
Carer retention, shown over time
Turnover in this sector is chronically high, so an agency that keeps its carers is immediately unusual and immediately more valuable. Buyers want to see retention evidenced across two or three years rather than asserted, because the roster walking out after completion is their biggest fear.
How quickly you can staff a new package
Time-to-staff is the operational number that tells a buyer whether your agency can grow. Days reads as a machine that wins and staffs work; weeks reads as a business already at its ceiling.
The mix between private and council-funded hours
Privately funded hours typically pay meaningfully better than framework rates and rise with the market rather than a council budget. Growing the private share is slow work, which is exactly why buyers pay for it ready-made.
Reliance on any single commissioner
Most of your hours through one council is the home care version of one big customer, and buyers discount it the same way, because a single decision elsewhere could remove a large slice of your income. Spreading funding sources protects your price.
Your CQC position, including if you have never been rated
Around half the market has never been inspected, and unrated does not mean unsellable, but it does mean a buyer is pricing an unknown. Knowing what an inspection would likely find, and fixing it first, converts directly into value.
How much of the coordination runs through you
If you still plan the rota or cover calls, a buyer is purchasing a job with a business attached. Every responsibility moved to a manager or coordinator before the sale converts into price on the day of it.
Multiples
What home care agencies sell for.
Home care agencies are priced as a multiple of EBITDA, meaning the yearly earnings of the business before interest, tax and depreciation. With no property in the deal, the quality of the hours and the team carries the whole price, which makes the tiering wider than in residential care.
| Profile of the agency | Indicative range |
|---|---|
| Settled team, strong private mix, spread funding, rated Good | 5 to 7× EBITDA |
| Reasonable retention, mixed funding, rated | 3.5 to 5× EBITDA |
| High churn, single-council dependence, or never inspected | 2 to 3.5× EBITDA |
EBITDA is adjusted for a fair management cost before the multiple is applied. Smaller agencies below roughly £150k of earnings often trade on simpler pricing. For a first view of where your agency lands, the free valuation takes a few minutes.
The process
What happens whenyou sell your agency.
We get as many qualified buyers to the table as we can, because competition is what moves the price. The partner you meet first stays with you until the money is in the bank.
We work through hours, funding mix, retention and how much depends on you, then value the business the way a buyer will rather than on a rule of thumb.
You finish this stage knowing your range, and whether going now or spending a year on the numbers first is the better decision.
Retention, time to staff a package, funding mix and complaint history all need showing over time, not asserting. We build that picture, along with the document buyers will read.
Anything that would surprise a buyer later gets dealt with now, while you still have room to negotiate.
We know which groups are buying in your area and at what size, because we track ownership across the whole sector rather than working from a listings page.
Your agency is never named until a buyer has been checked and has signed a confidentiality agreement. Your carers and your clients hear nothing.
In home care the structure matters as much as the number, because buyers often want a chunk paid later against retention or hours holding up. How that is written is worth as much as the headline.
You get a recommendation on each offer, not just a summary of it.
Buyers check everything before they pay. We run the document room, handle the questions, and keep it moving while your solicitors do their part.
Contract novations with councils and framework holders are the thing most likely to stall a home care deal, so we start them early rather than discovering them late.
Who buys
A wider pool than most owners expect.
The obvious buyer is another agency, and they are on the list. Behind them sits a range of groups and investors most owners have never been introduced to, and we explore all of them, because more interest is how value gets maximised.
Regional groups
Building density in your area, and often willing to pay for a clean agency next door to their existing coverage.
National providers
Filling gaps in coverage, usually looking for scale and a settled management layer.
Franchise networks
Resales and territory buy-ins, where the brand is already established and the buyer wants the operation.
Investor-backed buyers
Entering the sector or expanding a platform, and among the most active where the numbers stand up.
What happens next.
If you are starting to think about selling your agency, or someone has already approached you, the next step is a call with one of the partners.
On that call, a partner will
- Walk you through how a sale in your sector runs
- Answer whatever questions you arrive with
- Give you honest first feedback on your agency
- Explain how a typical engagement works
- Give you an indication of what it costs
Nothing to prepare, nothing to commit to, and no obligation at the end of it.
Your questions
Common questions about selling a home care business.
Value comes from the reliability of your income and the strength of your staffing: hours delivered and their trend, who funds them, carer retention, how quickly you staff new packages, and how much of the coordination depends on you. Two agencies delivering the same hours can be worth very different amounts.
Agencies with settled staff, a strong private mix and spread funding attract the highest multiples, with the market tiering down for single-council dependence, churn or an unrated service. The honest answer for any individual agency needs its figures, which is what the free valuation is for.
Yes, and around half the market is in that position. It changes how a buyer prices you rather than whether you can sell, because an unrated service carries unknown risk. It is worth understanding what an inspection would likely find before you go to market.
They tend to, for two reasons. Framework rates are usually lower than private rates, and heavy reliance on one commissioner concentrates risk in a single decision made elsewhere. A mixed funding base with a decent private share is worth more per hour delivered.
They have made recruitment harder across the sector, which cuts both ways: staffing pressures weigh on agencies that churn carers, and they increase what buyers will pay for an agency whose team stays. Your retention record matters more now, not less.
It makes it harder and it will cost you on price, because a buyer is acquiring an operation rather than a job. Reducing that dependency is the single highest-value thing you can do before selling.
Regional groups building density, national providers filling coverage gaps, franchise networks handling resales, and investor-backed buyers entering the sector. Below roughly a million in turnover the buyer is often a local group or an experienced operator.
Six to nine months from formally appointing us to the money arriving, with preparation adding three to twelve months before that. Contract novations with councils are the most common cause of delay, so they get started early.
The newsroom
Useful reading foragency owners.
Draft
What a Home Care Agency Is Actually Worth, and Who Decides
No building, no beds. What a buyer is really pricing when they look at your agency.
Draft
Private Clients Are Worth More Than Council Hours When You Sell
How much difference your funding mix makes, and what you can realistically change.
Draft
Half of UK Home Care Agencies Have No CQC Rating. Buyers Price That Silence
What an unrated service is worth, and what to do about it before you go to market.
