The number of people working in adult social care could double over the next 15 years, a new projection has shown.

There would be an additional 900,00 people working in social care jobs, as well as an increase in the number of personal assistants, which has some questioning the type of support that will be available to them.

Under the projections, based on the assumption that demand for personalised social care continues to grow at its current rate, the number of personal assistants would rise from 168,000 in 2010 to 722,00 in 2025. This would make up for a decrease of 16 per cent in the number of people working in domiciliary care jobs, a figure which currently stands at 391,000 but would fall to 337,000.

The figures, which were published in Skills for Care's State of the Adult Social Care Workforce, are based on the fact that people will continue to want publicly funded social care, provided in a personalised way and will want to remain in their homes for as long as possible.

The projections take into account the fact that people are now living longer and estimate that the number of people aged 85 years or older is expected to increase from 1m to 3.2 in 2041.

Nick Johnson, chief executive of the Social Care Association told Community Care that the potential increase in the number of personal assistants should re-open the debate about whether regulation is needed.

"With a big workforce of 700,000 people, tax and national insurance will need to be collected. Employers using direct payments-older and disabled people, won't be able to manage this so what systems will be in place?"he said.

Johnson also questioned how the social care transformation launched by the previous government would continue with imminent spending cuts. He suggested more services being provided by community organisations like in Canada, where "a lot of social care services were taken over by the church."