The number of adoptions in England has hit a new low, leaving children waiting longer for permanence amid a growing shortage of adopters, data has shown.
Just 590 children were placed with an adoptive family in the third quarter of 2025-26 (October to December 2025), down 17% on the previous quarter (710), revealed national data published by charity Coram on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE).
The total appears to be the lowest quarterly figure in several years. The number of children placed in 2024-25 (2,740) was the lowest annual total recorded in data going back to 2014-15, but this amounted to 685 placements per quarter, 14% above the total recorded in the third quarter of 2025-26.
The decline was reflected in the number of adoption orders issued by the courts in the quarter (620), which was down 3% on the previous quarter, and 17% below the quarterly average recorded from 2020-21 to 2024-25 (748).
Longer waits for children placed for adoption
While the number of children with a placement order waiting to be adopted as of 31 December 2025 – 3,010 – was the same as at the end of the previous quarter, they are waiting longer on average.
The average time children with a placement order had spent waiting to be placed since entering care as of 31 December 2025 was 645 days (one year and nine months), up 12 days on the previous quarter’s total.
Coram reported that 920 children had been waiting at least a year since the grant of their placement order, up 10% on the previous quarter (840) and 16% on the total as of 31 March 2025 (790).
The vast majority of those waiting over a year – 81% (680) – were children classified as hard to place: those aged five and over, disabled children, those from an ethnic minority (excluding white minorities) and sibling groups. Waiting times for these groups have been broadly stable over the past year.
Growing adopter shortage
The situation has been driven by a growing shortage of adopters.
As of the end of 2025, there were 2,060 children for whom active family finding was being carried out, with 1,580 families needed. However, there were just 680 adopter families involved in active family finding, leaving a shortfall of 900, up from 750 as of 31 March 2025.
The data showed an increase in the number of adopters approved in the third quarter of 2025-26 (590), compared with the previous quarter (560), while there was also an accompanying rise in the number approved and waiting for a match during the quarter, from 1,310 to 1,350.
However, the latter figure was down from 1,510, as of 31 March 2025, while the figures showed a sharp drop in the pipeline of potential adopters. As of 31 December 2025, 2,120 were awaiting approval, down from 2,280 at the end of the previous quarter.
Councils placing fewer children for adoption
The data also showed that councils were placing significantly fewer children for adoption.
The quarterly number of agency decision maker (ADM) decisions for adoption fell by 11%, from 880 in the second quarter of 2025-26 to 780 in the third quarter. This compares with a quarterly average of 969 ADM decisions from 2022-23 to 2024-25.
This translated into a 11% fall in the number of quarterly placement orders made by the family courts, from 790 in quarter two of 2025-26 to 700 in quarter three.
Council leaders have previously suggested that such trends may reflect the growing emphasis in government policy on children staying with their families or the greater use of kinship care for those who cannot stay with their parents.
They may also represent a reaction – from both councils and the courts – to the increasing shortage of adopters and the longer waits children are facing to be placed.
Suggested causes of adopter shortfall
Adoption England, the DfE-funded body that supports the work of regional adoption agencies (RAAs), said there were “many external and complex factors” behind the decline in the number of people coming forward to adopt since the Covid pandemic.
“Fewer people in England and the UK are choosing to have children, and a larger proportion of those who do are starting a family later in life,” said national adoption strategic lead Sarah Johal.”
“Economic uncertainty, housing, and other issues relating to the cost of living are believed to be a major factor in this,” she said, while she also pointed to the greater access to alternatives to adoption for those who were unable to, or had difficulties, having children naturally.
“Adoption England has a strategy in place, working in partnership with representatives from across the sector to address this challenge,” Johal added.
“While it is critical that investment continues in adopter recruitment marketing, we also need to do everything we can to ensure prospective adopters remain in the process. A vast amount of work is ongoing to improve the adopter journey to support and prepare people throughout the process – right from the very beginning of first contact with an agency, through to children being matched and placed with a family. A lot of progress has been made and this remains a key priority for us.”
Adoption support concerns
Charities have also warned that concerns about a lack of post-adoption support are also deterring potential adopters from coming forward.
In February, the government launched a consultation on an overhaul of the adoption support system, which would include the devolution of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), the national pot that resources therapy services, to regional adoption agencies and/or local authorities.
Other proposals included providing adoptive and eligible kinship families with a “baseline offer of parenting support” at the point of placement, boosting peer support and delivering proactive interventions for children at key stages in their lives, such as transition to secondary school.
However, the DfE faced criticisms from campaigners and charities for not reversing severe cuts to maximum payments to families through the ASGSF made last year and for allegedly minimising the ongoing trauma carried by adopted children through its emphasis on early intervention.
These concerns were acknowledged by Johal, who added: “There are of course also concerns in the sector that the uncertainty around the future of the ASGSF and recent media coverage of adoption breakdowns will be affecting people’s views when considering adoption.”
‘Without improved support, recruitment decline will continue’
Adoption UK chief executive Emily Frith made this point in response to data that she described as “not surprising” but “extremely worrying”.
She said the “solution” to the decline in the number of adoptions was ensuring that the “right support is available for adopted children from the very beginning, with support being there in the right place at the right time as children grow up”.
“The government needs to recognise that adoption support and adopter recruitment are two sides of the same coin,” Frith added. “Without a focus on support, recruitment numbers will continue to decline.”
She said the the government’s consultation provided a “fantastic opportunity” for a “radical reset of adoption support”, giving children “a legal entitlement to support based on a multi-disciplinary assessment of need, which is flexible to the needs of the child as they get older”.
Johal added that, alongside the government’s consultation, Adoption England, RAAs and other bodies were working on developing a national model of adoption support.
Adoption England said this would set out what adoptees and families needed – based on research and lived experience – delivered through a commissioning framework involving a diverse range of providers that improved consistency, responsiveness and use of resources.
Fall in number of SGOs despite kinship focus
Despite the DfE’s focus on boosting kinship care in its children’s social care reforms, the number of special guardianship orders (SGO) fell in 2025-26 compared with the previous year.
In 2024-25, 4,190 SGOs were granted, an average of 1,048 per quarter and up from 3,860 in 2023-24. However, in the first three quarters of 2025-26, 2,940 SGOs were granted, an average of 980 per quarter, a fall of 6% year on year.
DfE policies promoting kinship care include:
- Legislating to require local authorities to publish information about their general approach to supporting children in kinship care and kinship carers in their area (“the kinship local offer”).
- Piloting paying kinship carers looking after children who would otherwise be in care – including through SGOs – equivalent allowances to foster carers in seven areas.
- Promoting the use of family group decision making, enabling extended families to come up with plans to safeguard and promote the welfare of children about whom there are concerns, backed by council support packages.
Source: Community Care, Mithran Samuel
