The guide
There is no reliable published UK benchmark for care home enquiry-to-move-in rates, and any figure quoted without a source should be treated with suspicion. Rates vary enormously depending on how a home defines an enquiry, whether it serves mainly private or local authority funded residents, and how competitive the local area is. The number worth knowing is your own, tracked consistently over time.
Updated August 2026
There is no honest industry number, but there is a useful one of your own. In brief:
No benchmark
Because nobody defines an enquiry the same way. One home counts every call. Another counts only calls about a specific placement. A third counts website forms separately and never reconciles them. Compare those three and the resulting percentages are not measuring the same thing.
Add the funding mix, local competition and whether the home has a dedicated person handling enquiries, and a national average would tell you almost nothing useful even if it existed. If an agency quotes you an industry conversion rate, ask where it came from. The answer is usually another agency's blog post.
Your own number
Move-ins in a period, divided by enquiries in the same period, with a strict definition of enquiry.
Count only genuine enquiries about a placement. Leave out:
Then use that same definition every single month, because the trend is the point and an inconsistent definition destroys the trend.
Most homes cannot do this today. That is normal, and fixing it costs nothing but a spreadsheet and a habit.
Track these
By source, so you know which channels are working.
Measured from enquiry to first meaningful reply.
Because the visit is where most decisions are actually made.
Which tells you whether the home sells itself once people are in it.
Splitting the funnel at the visit is the single most useful thing most homes can do, because it separates a marketing problem from a home problem. Plenty of homes with a poor headline conversion rate have an excellent visit-to-move-in rate and simply are not getting people through the door.
What moves it
A family enquiring about care is usually in the middle of something difficult and is contacting several homes at once. Care England and Log my Care surveyed 1,000 UK families who had recently arranged care and found 97 per cent described the process as difficult, 61 per cent felt overwhelmed, anxious, frustrated or stressed, and 40 per cent said the hardest part was working out who to trust.
The first thoughtful reply to someone in that state carries weight far beyond its content. Homes that give enquiries to a named person rather than to whoever happens to be near the phone convert better, consistently.
A referral from a discharge team converts differently from a cold directory click. Blending them into one rate hides the thing you most need to know. Track by source or the number misleads you.
Reputation was the single most important factor in choosing a provider at 30 per cent in the Care England research, ahead of cost at 25 per cent, staff experience at 24 per cent and location at 24 per cent.
A family who arrived having already seen honest photographs, read other families' words and understood roughly what fees cover is a different prospect from one who arrived cold. Much of your conversion rate is decided before the phone rings.
Timing
The decision period is weeks, not days, and it has been lengthening. Mediahawk's 2023 care home call tracking analysis found it was taking around 28 per cent longer on average from enquiry to admission than the year before, as families researched across more sources before committing.
That means this month's conversion rate is partly measuring last quarter's enquiries. Judge the trend over a rolling quarter rather than reacting to a single month.
If your rate is low
More volume into a leaky process produces more waste, not more move-ins.
First
Who answers, how fast, what happens after the first call, and whether anyone follows up at day three and day ten.
Then add volume once the process holds.
The wider picture
The wider picture is in our pillar on how to increase care home occupancy, and if enquiry volume genuinely is the constraint, how to get more enquiries for your care home covers that side. If occupancy has slipped, why your care home occupancy might be dropping looks at the causes.
Common questions
There is no reliable published UK benchmark, and any figure quoted without a source should be treated with suspicion. Rates vary enormously with how a home defines an enquiry, whether it serves mainly private or local authority funded residents, and local competition. The useful measure is your own rate tracked over time, not a national average.
Divide move-ins in a period by enquiries received in the same period, and be strict about what counts as an enquiry. Count only genuine enquiries about a placement, not job applications, supplier calls or wrong numbers. Then track the same definition every month so the trend means something.
Response speed and who does the responding. Families are usually contacting several homes at once during a difficult period, and the first thoughtful reply carries disproportionate weight. Homes that give enquiries to a named person rather than whoever is nearest to the phone convert better.
Weeks rather than days for most private enquiries, and the period has been lengthening as families research across more sources before committing. That means a low conversion rate this month may reflect enquiries that will convert next quarter, which is why the timing of the measurement matters.
Usually the opposite. A low conversion rate means the enquiries you already have are not turning into move-ins, so more enquiries will produce more waste. Fix the handling first, then add volume.
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