Junior Doctors Unemployment in August

[PurpleFairyLights]

Name changed but long term poster. Have a child that is in this situation with 100k of student debt.

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2025-05-07/bma-we-could-potentially-see-thousands-of-unemployed-doctors

Unbelievable this was allowed. Most countries protect their medical graduates.

YANBU, OP, it’s horrendous. They’ve been totally screwed over. If they don’t start to prioritise UK medical grads soon, there will be an even bigger mass exodus than there already is to aus/NZ.

How can they let this happen. Why have so many training places.

Sorry this happened to your child after so much hard work! I'm sure they will find their place.

This is absolutely shocking 😮

I wonder if they think that the reduction in UK undergraduate places (my institution are forecasting taking just 20% from UK for all ug admissions) might even this out in the next few years?

I find this just so hard to believe that this has happened. Such a terrible situation for those involved, such an absolutely farce.

They opened up training to doctors from all over the world. My DC is preparing to come back home in August as will be unemployed. Been a doctor for 4 years.

It is lack of training places and huge increase in applications for these training places from non-UK graduates

They have not got a training place this year so will be unemployed for a year. An unemployed surgeon.

Non-training posts virtually non-existent due to cits in budget or too much competition from non-UK doctors.

It’s crazy that they don’t prioritise the new UK trained doctors for these training places. My daughter will be hit by this too if nothing changes before next year. She’s worried about being unemployed - after 5 years at medical school and two years’ foundation. Not forgetting the £100K student loans.

If this continues the younger generation will not want to become doctors.

Anyone who thinks this is disgusting (and it is) please write to your MPs. A national cock up on an epic scale. We need every doctor we have trained to be working in the NHS in the UK. The NHS is broken and desperate for staff, so how can the government not have planned to create enough jobs to take on all the trainee doctors on that the taxpayer has already spent millions on training as medical students? Or do we apparently just want to gift all of that training away free to benefit the health services of other countries?.

This is an absolutely appalling waste of money and talent.

Teaching is similar. You hear about a shortage, but this is very subject / area specific. In my area, it's not unusual for 60 applicants for one primary teaching post. Some of those will be in work and so freeing up a post elsewhere, but many are not.

I suppose the difference is it is only a 3 year course or 4 years (degree + PGCE route) and it is possible to work as a supply teacher for a time. It is still disheartening though.

Is it ethical for UK to take doctors from other countries that need doctors too? Meanwhile leaving our doctors unemployed.

are clinical fellow roles and locum posts not an option for your DC? Trying to understand the landscape.

@PurpleFairyLights has your DC done some speciality training as I thought foundation is 2 years so they’ve managed to do 2 years of speciality training already?

There are mot many due to cuts and these vacancies are open to doctors from abroad too so competition is stiff.

My brother is a fantastic doctor - qualified about 6 years now. He basically has to re-apply for his job every year as they are always on one or two year contracts until they become a registra. He doesn't want to be a registra yet, he has had the opportunity but still wants to work in multiple areas before he settles on his speciality for the rest of his career. He's only 35.

This year he hasn't been successful in getting a job. The deenery he applied for had only 205 jobs across the whole area - 3 major hospitals. Utterly ridiculous. Over 2,000 applied. He has applied for everything he has seen.

He has worked the last 3 years in A&E full time. Amazing experience. Utterly shocking he is considering a job in a supermarket etc until he can find a post.

He was offered one 400 miles from where he lives but with a new wife and baby on the way didn't want to take it.

The most ridiculous system I have ever come across.

No, speciality training starts after F2, as far as I'm aware.

@PurpleFairyLights, I'm so sorry that your dc is in this position. It's hard to believe that this is what they get at the end of the incredible amount of time, money and effort that they have invested.

My dd is only a first year right now, so we have a long road ahead before we reach this point, but I'm already worrying about it. I will be writing to my MP and hoping that the government will look at what a nonsense this is.

@PurpleFairyLights ..
There is a red list of countries that the WHO says developed countries should not recruit from due to the impact on local communities...
But guess what...the UK still do...
I understand on an individual basis a doctor from say DRC might want to leave for a better life in UK...but should we really actively encourage this mass move ?
Definitely not over our home grown students.
It used to be seen as a good thing to "train Nd return" international medical graduates...they came to the UK to gain skills they would take back to their own countries to benefit their communities and med students...but over last 30 yrs , it's more attractive to stay here...

DC is a surgeon so did F1 and F2 then surgical ST1 and ST2. There is then a bottleneck for higher surgical training from ST3 (unless in a run through specialty).

Disgusting but sadly not surprising with this government, the level of cuts being made currently at our trust is unprecedented and scary. Clinical roles being cut when staff leave and aren’t replaced. Higher band roles being replaced by much less experienced lower banded staff. Concerning for staff and patients.

Why train them but not have the specific amount of training posts? Ridiculous but nothing shocks me any more.

I believe this problem started under the last government to be fair.

Contact details for Wes Streeting.

https://members.parliament.uk/member/4504/contact

Clinical fellow posts? [rye laugh]
My ds is in the same position as yours @PurpleFairyLights . Happy and well-rated by his colleagues after almost completing 2 years as a junior (resident) doc and no job come August.

Clinical fellow posts are equally scarce and ridiculously competitive with hundreds of applicants for each post. The number of locum posts has drastically reduced. DS is thinking he will have to leave his medicine career which he loves and is genuinely good at.

Sorry @PurpleFairyLights -only skim reading with one eye on Eurovision your dc is further up (down?) the pipe than mine at the next bottleneck. Commiserations and thanks for raising this issue again.