To think the junior / resident doctors are greedy, selfish, entitled & lazy?

You are welcome. I should add that unlike ARCP, Royal College examinations properly test performance and STs may get stuck around the mid point of training.

My husband earns more than them. He didn't study for 7 years and certainly doesn't hold someone's life in his hands every day.

Most of the people that support them are people with doctors in their family or social circles.

I support them and just because you don't know anyone that does is irrelevant

They are on £36,000 for their first year only (in England - slightly less in Wales and Scotland). Their pay goes up far more quickly than any other public sector worker: Pay scales for resident doctors in England

Where is the money for the doctors pay rises going to come from? By cuts elsewhere? Or by tax rises?

It all has to come from somewhere. And I don't see why the general public, most of whom who earn far less than doctors should be expected to stump up the cost, just so doctors can live in even more luxury. Maybe doctors can forgo their gold-plated pensions in order to have more money now?

Thank you so much, @Marchesman. Your info has helped me see through a lot of the Union, and media, hoo-ha surrounding the issue!

What does the phrase "Resident/Junior" doctors mean?

Totally agree. Junior doctors are grossly underpaid, their claim is to try and regain what they have lost over the years of pay freezes etc. Many of the doctors trained in the U.K. are leaving to work in New Zealand and Australia where they are paid well and not exploited. We should support them to keep them here to help our ailing NHS. Please support them.

I thought the package Streeting was offering included a lot more than just a whopping pay offer. It included training places, better timetables, not having to pay for exams, and there has been mention of looking at fees. But amongst all of this no one says where they think any more money to give more pay is going to come from. The junior doctors have squeezed the maximum the government can afford to pay. They may well deserve more but they will have to wait because we haven’t got it to pay.

Progress begins to be competitive at the end of F2, when the next step is CT1 or ST1, depending on the speciality. Core trainees have another round of competitive interviews but once into ST mode, pay progression is automatic. There is a thing called the Annual Review of Competency Progression (ARCP), but unless you are extremely dim, lazy, mentally ill, or frankly homicidal this should not be a problem.

The BMA's story is that foreigners take all the jobs, and there should be more "training posts" i.e. CT1 or ST1 posts. But 50% of F2s don't apply for one of these, many instead choose to take up a locally employed post, some of whom will later apply for a training post, if they don't go abroad etc. The competition for most training posts is therefore absurdly low - compared with the outside world. For medicine, surgery and general practice last year the competition ratios were 5.3, 8.6 and 4.9.

For salaries by grade:
digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-staff-earnings-estimates/august-2025

Why are they striking for more money and not better conditions and guaranteed career paths? Is it because they haven’t been re-balloted by the BMA?

This is what will destroy the NHS as we know it - and it will not guarantee career pathways for doctors. Golden egg laying goose innit.

It is essentially an apprenticeship until they are fully trained and they should be paid accordingly. Currently they are very highly paid for an apprentice and as students shouldn't scoff at £18 an hour, which is over £5 an hour higher than minimum wage. It shows how entitled they truly are.

I was surprised to find out that nurses can earn $100k in the US.

Interesting to know. I'm still amazed by what I can legally do while operating heavy plant. Like, I can work 15 hours, have a 'reduced' rest period of nine hours (with employer knowing that I'll lose two hours of that commuting before I can even think about cooking/eating/showering/getting dressed in morn etc) and then coming back in and doing another 15 hour shift.

So 30 hours of work with maybe five hours sleep in the middle. Driving vehicles from 32-100 tons in close proximity to workers. Sometimes in the central reservation and having to rejoin by entering fast lane from a standing start. It's insane.

America pays less, as do France, Germany and many other countries - are residents are relatively well paid for the hours they do.

I would not call them lazy but just because you want a training post, does not mean you should get one.

Doesn't everyone realise Medical Doctors that are not being paid properly can go anywhere in the world: America, Australia, Germany, France, the Arab States etc, and probably be paid far more for an easier workload.

I would imagine you need a good standard of German or French to practice medicine in Germany or France. According to an article in 2023, specialist doctors and consultants in England earn more than those in France.

One year my pitiful 1.2% raise put me in the next contribution level of pension contributions, so my pay rise meant I was actually worse off each month.

I started medical school in 2006 - still a ‘junior’ doctor.

The thing that people miss is it isn’t just about the salary. It is about the amount of debt they are carrying following 5 years university education. The government should make the education free, as long as you stay in the NHS for 15 years. Then the salaries wouldn’t be a problem.
An FYone starts at £40,000. With a standard three year law degree, you could start at more than that in one of the cities, and it really isn’t life or death doing law. I say that, as that was what I did.

So yes given how hard it is, how clever you have to be, and how exceptionally large their debt will be, they do need to be better paid, or free medical education as long as you stay in the NHS for 15 years.

I honestly don’t know why we let them run up such debt.

Cant agree with the lazy part of this, because it just does not bear out what I have seen. But I do think their position is entitled and selfish - the rest of the NHS has had far, far less than they have. But doctors often seem to see themselves as special and I think this is an offshoot of this. There are massive issues which need to be addressed around training, placements and the ways junior doctors are treated. But I have no time for their strike action.

Doesn't everyone realise Medical Doctors that are not being paid properly can go anywhere in the world: America, Australia, Germany, France, the Arab States etc, and probably be paid far more for an easier workload.

Doctors are a very valuable resource and should be paid accordingly. We are losing far too many qualified/part qualified medical practitioners. UK needs to pay according to worldwide standards otherwise the NHS will totally fail. We already see this with dentists who have left the NHS.

What's HTH ?

And the junior doctors of now weren't about in 2008

"but don’t like the challenges of the children or the challenges of the nhs. "

Who effing would? Both sound horrendous.

As for being on the breadline, definitely not, but I can imagine that teachers living somewhere expensive like London don't have an easy time of it.