Self-employed DBS check statistics 2026
September was our busiest month yet. Eight months of self-employed Enhanced DBS application data, from February to September 2026.Since 21st January 2026, eligible self-employed people in England and Wales have been able to apply for an Enhanced DBS check through a registered Umbrella Body without an employer applying on their behalf. We run a registered Umbrella Body platform for self-employed applicants. This page shares what we are seeing, updated monthly.
Journalists, researchers and bloggers are welcome to use any figure on this page with a link to it as the source.
Key findings
- +63%New Enhanced DBS applications increased by 63% in September compared with August, a new monthly high on our platform.
- +69%Completed checks rose by 69% month on month, and applications submitted to DBS rose by 87%.
- +213%Sport and physical activity applications more than tripled in September, the first month after the supervision exemption was removed.
- 10xSeptember's new application volume was more than ten times March's, our first complete reporting month.
- 87%Of applications involve work with children. Almost a third involve work with both children and vulnerable adults.
- 52Job titles appeared for the first time in September, taking the total to 212 distinct titles.
September set another monthly high
September was our busiest month on every measure. New Enhanced DBS applications rose by 63% compared with August, completed checks rose by 69% and applications submitted to DBS rose by 87%.
These are separate measures: a check completed in September may have started in an earlier month. Faster growth in submissions and completions than in new applications suggests more of the summer's applications moved through to a result in September.
New application volume was around three times June's level and more than ten times March's. Across July to September, we received around two and a half times as many new applications as in April to June.
Last month we expected a temporary dip in late September as some applicants waited for the government fee for an Enhanced DBS check to fall from £49.50 to £41 on 5th October 2026. That dip did not appear. Weekday application levels in the final ten days of September were in line with the rest of the month. Our next update will be the first to cover a full month at the lower fee.
Who is applying
Sport and physical activity was the standout sector in September. Applications rose by 213% compared with August, and the sector's share of new applications almost doubled, from 6.5% to 12.5%.
Most of that rise came from children's sports and activity coaching. Applications recorded as Children Sports Club Coach or Children Club Coach nearly tripled. The timing coincides with the removal of the supervision exemption on 1 September 2026, which makes some supervised roles eligible for Children’s Barred List checks for the first time. The data does not record why applicants chose September, so we cannot say how much of the rise the change explains.
Health and wellbeing made the largest contribution to September's overall increase, accounting for around a third of it, with applications up 74%. Social care and support more than doubled, rising 112%.
Education and tutoring settled after August's back-to-school surge. Its share fell from 40% in August to 29% in September, although applications still grew by 17%. Tutor applications rose by 13% and Teacher applications by 16%.
Across the full February to September period, health and wellbeing and education and tutoring remain almost level, at 29% and 28%. Together they account for more than half of all applications. Social care and support and sport and physical activity follow at 9% each, with childcare and youth support at 8%.
Tutor remains the most common recorded title, representing 17% of applications across the reporting period, followed by Teacher at 10%. Children Sports Club Coach moved up to 3.5% of all applications after its September rise.
The breadth of occupations keeps growing
The data now covers 212 distinct job titles, with 117 represented in September alone. Of those, 52 appeared for the first time in September. Around 72% of titles appear only once or twice across the full reporting period.
September added titles such as radiographer, mental health nurse, swimming teacher, forest school leader, private Mandarin tutor, theatre practitioner and mobile farm operator. The wider data includes an end-of-life doula, an adaptive surf practitioner, an orthopaedic surgeon and a puppetry workshop facilitator.
These smaller occupations sit alongside the higher-volume teaching, health and care roles, showing the range of specialists using the platform.
Who applicants work with
Across the reporting period, 87% of applications involve work with children. This includes 55% relating to children only and 31% involving both children and vulnerable adults. A further 13% relate solely to work with vulnerable adults.
Overall, 45% involve work with vulnerable adults once the overlap is included. In September alone, 87% of applications involved children, in line with the period as a whole.
October’s update will show the first full month of demand at the lower £41 Enhanced DBS fee, and a second month of data following the supervision exemption change.
Methodology
This update uses self-employed Enhanced DBS application records with a recorded job title created on self-employed-dbs.co.uk between 11 February and 30th September 2026, from an export taken on 13th October 2026. October activity is outside the reporting period. February is a partial month; March to September are complete months.
New applications are counted by their creation date, submissions by their submission date and completed checks by their completion date. Completions may relate to applications created in earlier months. These figures count application records, rather than unique people or account sign-ups. The growth chart shows each series as a multiple of its own March 2026 level, rounded to one decimal place. Every edition is calculated from the latest export and all earlier months are restated from it, so figures for previous months may differ from those published in earlier editions.
Sector, role and workforce percentages use application records created within the stated period as their base. Sector groupings are assigned from recorded job titles; titles outside the named sectors are grouped as other services. Capitalisation, spacing and adult/child workforce suffixes are normalised when counting distinct job titles and ranking roles. Other differently worded titles remain separate. Whole-number percentages are rounded independently; charts show one decimal place where useful, so rounded figures may not sum exactly.
We publish percentages and growth rates rather than raw application volumes. We are one platform among several registered Umbrella Bodies, so these figures describe our application data rather than the whole market.
To cite this page: "Self-Employed DBS Statistics 2026, self-employed-dbs.co.uk" with a link. For press enquiries or the underlying percentages in table form, contact us via the support form.