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.

Doctors only have one possible employer in their early careers - the NHS - because it is a monopolistic employer in the UK. There are no private options that allow them to continue their training. The only alternative is to leave medicine. So it’s a very big problem when the only employer they have won’t employ them.

It’s a very different situation to say a graduate seeking accountancy work who can be employed by the Big 4, any number of mid tier firms, by companies with in-house accountants, by the government etc etc etc. No guaranteed job, but one can be scrapped together with a bit of effort and time.

In my hospital (NHS Scotland) a student nurse who’s about to qualify told me that 80 student nurse/midwifes will qualify this year all have been interviewed and they’ve all just received an email saying that there are only 10 jobs.
In Scotland students receive a £10000 PA tax free bursary and get all their tutition fees paid by the government. What a complete waste of money if the NHS is unable to offer them a job at the end of their training.

@R3s3t ‘gilded education’ ? I assume you don’t know anyone who has recently become a doctor 😂

@tiredwardsister I know it’s the same for nurses too. The NHS in England is a mess, because of greedy people who have tried to do all they can to skim money off it. Wes needs to stand up and do something fast for he to have any respect for him as a defender of a free NHS.

Does anyone know what experience Wes has to be Health Secretary?

Surely the Labour MP that is an A&E doctor would be a better fit? She has gone through the very broken system.

And majority of doctors I know have entered the workforce as HCAs and been on the wards since at least year 3. Many of the current F2s worked through the pandemic on wards as HCAs. Many ST2 graduated early to help out.

The number of medical places is legally restricted to ensure all have a foundation job - this no longer happens. There are enough training posts for every UK graduate. It should be simple.

NHS Scotland is different to NHS England there are no trusts and money is given directly to the individual regional health boards not the PCTs. One would hope that this would be mean a better service for patients and although most of us who’ve worked in both NHS England and NHS Scotland think Scotlands NHS is better or at least not as bad because historically it’s not been underfunded for so long. But now the lack of sufficient funding and as always in the NHS no forward planning, (we have an huge expensive aging population here and not enough young people as our population as a whole is declining), is starting to show.
I despair for the NHS in the UK, my colleagues and most importantly for our patients. I never thought Id see the day when student nurses doctors midwife’s couldn’t get jobs. We have waiting lists that are miles long no beds and equally if not more important no social care.

I would urge anyone doubting the issues the latest cohorts are facing to not be dismissive but research it further. While we keep debating it amongst ourselves on whether those affected are right to feel aggrieved, much damage is happening to the NHS which will be irreversible. Ultimately it doesn't just affect the doctors, it affects patients and the state of healthcare in the UK as a whole. There will be others that know the true situation and use their influence to make hay while the sun is shining!

Not sure how, if at all, this has impacted the issues your nurses are facing?

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/planning-to-take-5k-nurses-to-uk-every-year-dr-mehta/articleshow/97708158.cms

I think the point being missed is that doctors are on the 90th percentile of earnings. They were higher but the recent pay award will build that back up. What might be happening is that others come with more experience and are therefore cheaper - £ for £. It’s a productivity issue.

There’s still huge competition to get onto a medical course so most are not voting with their feet in terms of career choice. I would rather see our trainees get positions but it’s clear (the IFS agrees) that the rhetoric about training more doctors only went as far as producing more grads. The fact we have incompetence, and targets set by government, affecting how they were going to get work should come as no surprise.

It is a gilded university training. It clearly costs universities a lot more than fee income. Other grads subsidise it and they don’t expect to walk into jobs. They might be equally as “needed” by society. Doctors are still some of the highest earning grads by degree studied (Ifs again) and I think this could be a temporary set back. It is possible to cap immigrants.

I think the difficulty might have also arisen because of the political need to shift waiting lists. Take someone needing further training and supervision of take someone who can plough through the waiting lists? I think it’s the latter but of course strikes have added to that list. There’s no easy fix but it’s buyer beware isn’t it? Like everyone else. They often don’t think life after university is fair either.

I’m sorry @TizerorFizz but you are not understanding at all what is going on in the NHS. I can’t keep saying the sane things so will leave it here.

Want a doctor ? Pay them what they are worth.

And £17 an hour is not in the top 50% of salaries.

Interesting article I suspect many will end up in nursing homes who really struggle to recruit trained nurses for good reasons. Pay and conditions (superann, AL entitlement training etc) are not as good as the NHS and the work does not appeal to many nurses and in my opinion is unsuitable for a newly qualified nurse who needs to consolidate their training.

Unfortunately the public purse is not big enough. We need to understand that too. Everyone wants more and more and more. Doctors could agree to take less money from us for pensions contributions? They get a better deal than nearly everyone else. I do get that doctors are in the top 10.% of earners and there is still a lot of competition to get on the courses. I’d suggest school leavers do something wise if it’s that bad. Why do it?

absolutely shocking but not surprising. There are no jobs for anyone in the NHS at the trust I work for. Even nurses who qualify won’t have jobs to go to. I can’t see an end, three years maybe. We’ve been told anybody leaves they aren’t being replaced we just have to find a way to work differently or rather work even harder.

The universities hand over part of the last couple of years of medical school training to the NHS as students are on placement at district general hospitals for final years. Plus students pay less tuition fee and get NHS bursaries.
My DC is in a specialist training post but didn't get in first time round for ct1 and for st but was fortunate to have had a clinical fellow post and agency during the gaps.
It is annoying that training positions in the UK are open to people from any country but does not work in reverse (although whereas many applicants from abroad can speak reasonable English very few UK medical graduates can speak other languages and no different than the rest of the UK population)
Although if you look at the pass rate for MRCP which is essential for higher level training posts then it is much higher for the UK trained candidates than for any other candidate.

I don't suppose people realise to get a full time salary a junior doctor will be doing a 48 hour week whereas standard NHS staff (including management 😬) do 37.5 and a lot of office workers in private sector are on 35.
Which is why resident doctor appear to be on a good salary (especially if you think of the nights and weekends)

Your observation about UK pass rates being higher than IMGs for the MRCP is reasonable. I am not sure what you make of of an IMG recruited (after passing PLAB and with more than a decade of experience) to lower entry positions, then failing the MRCP while in their NHS post but being kept on in their speciality training level post perhaps for compassionate reasons? Not sure how it's fair on patients and the doctors facing unemployment!

If I remember rightly can make several attempts at each part of the MRCP and some will pay thousands on crammer courses for each stage.
So many will pass eventually.
Hopefully if they are truly not capable then there are ways of keeping the population safe and they should go

Absolutely.

I can only speak fully on my area, however, in covid time when study went online, universitys figured they could recruit more students on to courses. This happened at the same time a university with multiple campuses introduced nursing to the local campus near to a large hospital. So one university increased students by 50%, another 50% from the other uni, so local students graduating increased 100% in a year. This was great news, nursing shortages were a huge national problem at the time.

Alongside this, in 2022, the government increased the recruit from over seas initiative. In 2022/23 100's of overseas nurses came into our trust. They pretty much filled every vacancy. Every ward, every department had multiple join their teams. Again this was great news, as there was a massive shortage of nurses.

However, whilst most positions were filled, they werent all filled. So wards are still running understaffed. But what did happen was bugets were blown. The relocation of overseas nurses cost the trust a fortune. ALongside this, most overseas nurses come into areas as adaption nurses, so they have to complete extra training and pass in order to work as a staff nurse. These adaption periods, they were shadowing, so not in numbers, and being paid for this too. Costing the trusts even more. In 2023 most new grads got jobs. In 2024 at the time of graduating, some 40% didnt have imediate jobs to go into, but many have found employment since. 2025, i dont have the figures, but our trust is publically telling students not to apply for their PIN immediately so they cqan continue to works as bank HCA's until they have a job.

So whilst we needed this recruitment from overseas, it used up budgets, and left us in recruitment freezes, in a time where it was in the media nationally there were shortages of nurses, more university placements, and recruitment drives. They also lowered the UCAS requirements for students enrolling on the degrees. So now we have more students than ever before, and no jobs. Applications appear to have gone down this year, however, its actually still higher locally as theres more places available.

The overseas recruitment has directly impacted job availability for local students, who are up to £70k in debt, and have given 2300 hour of free work, as their supernumerary time is often used filling in for HCA shortages (which are also fewer than before, as these overseas nurses - their partners often get employment as HCA's) to the trust, are not getting jobs after.

I think this is what we need more on - information as to how we got here and what the situation currently is.

Do you think I should add about nurses too? The Royal College of Nurses raised the issue of jobs for new graduates last week.

I would be inclined to focus on the one issue.
Then the answers have to be focussed too… hopefully!

Thanks.

The article dangles a carrot by stating that if they work here for 5 years, they will be entitled to British Citizenship which is irresponsible and incorrect.

@puffinchuffin very sad to hear how it's affecting the nurses too. Surely, all these issues need addressing urgently as it's unfair on UK students. From what you're saying too, some serious questions need to be asked on how exactly the NHS budget is used in relation to overseas recruitment.