Carey is based at the Nuffield Foundation leading a programme of work on The Changing Face of Early Childhood. She was the first Chief Executive of the Early Intervention Foundation, a charity and What Works Centre. Earlier roles include being Co-director of the Institute of Public Policy Research, Special Advisor to Tony Blair in the Number 10 Policy Unit (2000-05), specialising in employment, social security, childcare and poverty. Carey has also been a senior lecturer in social policy at the South Bank University, deputy director and head of research at the Child Poverty Action Group, chaired the London Child Poverty Commission and advised the Department for Education on early years strategy. She is a visiting senior fellow at the Institute of Inequalities at the LSE and on the governing body of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. She has worked as secondary school teacher and trained as a counsellor.