Home care aide
Also called live in caretaker, live in caregiver, personal care worker
Home care aides provide personal assistance and promote autonomy, on a daily basis to individuals who are unable to take care of themselves due to illness, ageing or disability. They assist them with personal hygiene, feeding, communication or medication according to the health care professional's instructions.
What you'd do
Home-based personal care workers · ILO- Assisting clients with personal and therapeutic care needs such as personal hygiene, feeding, dressing, physical mobility and exercise, communication, taking oral medications and changing dressings, usually as per care plans established by a health professional
- Maintaining records of client care, changes in condition and responses to care and treatment, and reporting concerns or providing referrals to a health or social services professional
- Positioning and lifting clients with physical mobility challenges, and helping transport them in wheelchairs and motor vehicles
- Providing clients and families with emotional support and information and advice on topics such as nutrition, hygiene, exercise, caring for infants or adapting to disability or illness
- Maintaining clients' environmental hygiene standards, such as changing bed linen, washing clothes and dishes, and cleaning living quarters
- Providing psychological support to clients such as through conversation or reading aloud
- Planning, purchasing, preparing, or serving meals to meet nutritional requirements and prescribed diets
- Providing support to parents and care for newborns during the postpartum period
- Scheduling and accompanying clients for appointments with medical doctors and other health professionals or performing other errands
- Indoors
- On your feet most of the day
- Lots of contact with people
- Little freedom to decide
- Usually 40 hours a week
- Deadlines now and then
- Some repetitive tasks
Will there be jobs?
Yes, good prospects12 EU countries are short of home-based personal care workers now, and a typical number of jobs will need filling by 2035.
Solid: measured. Dashed: forecast.
What does it pay?
Below averagePay depends a lot on the country: from about €900 a month (Bulgaria) to €4,700 (Luxembourg), before tax.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see typical pay there, for people under 30, and compared with all jobs.
Among service and sales workers in the EU, women earn 3% less per hour than men. Service and sales workers · Eurostat
What do I need to study?
Upper secondary or vocationalUpper secondary or vocational training in care of the elderly and of disabled adults is the usual route.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see where to study and the official course finders.
Will AI change it?
LittleAI could take on part of some tasks, but none fully.
Average task score 0.25 on a scale from 0 (AI can't do it) to 1 (AI could do it fully).
See the score for each of the 9 tasks
Based on what AI could technically do when assessed in 2025. It is not a forecast for a future year, and not a forecast of job losses. Scores for home-based personal care workers. Source: ILO (2025), adapted (credits).