Why newly qualified doctors are struggling to find jobs – and what's being done about it

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By Julie Penfold

As specialty recruitment opens for 2026, Doctors.net.uk examines the driving factors behind the current employment crisis for medical graduates and what meaningful action is being taken.

When competition ratios for specialty training posts were released last month, they were received with a mix of panic and outrage. Social media was alight with newly qualified doctors lamenting increasingly long odds for securing their futures in medicine.

In specialties such as core psychiatry, there were a staggering 10,667 applications for just 489 training posts. In anaesthetics, just 539 places were available for 6,770 applications. In general practice, 20,995 applications were made for just 4,276 training posts.

The co-chairs of the British Medical Association (BMA) resident doctors committee described the ratios as “depressing,” and suggest the crisis is due to successive governments not delivering enough training places to keep up with demand. “Perhaps most galling in a country where so many patients are unable to see a GP, there are five doctors applying for every GP training post,” explained Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, BMA RD committee co-chairs.