The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore professional social workers perceptionson cultural competence. Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionalsocial workers from different municipalities in Sweden. The interviews were analyzed usingthematic analysis and social constructivism as a theoretical framework along with theoreticalconcepts such as; culturally sensitive social work and cultural competence, professional roleand cultural capital.The result of the study shows that professional social workers experience several factors inwhat affects cultural competence. Further the result shows that cultural competence can varydepending on the personal experiences and on cultural belonging. The professional socialworkers experienced a lack of prerequisites in acquiring cultural competence in the practicalsocial work but also in the social education.The professional social workers stated that the cultural competence was something that theindividual needed to acquire on their own initiative - either based on interaction withindividuals of cultural diversity or by their own studies.