Support newly qualified nurses: Review barriers to NHS jobs

Newly qualified nurses report struggling to get NHS jobs due to internal-only adverts and experience requirements. The NHS is short-staffed, but we feel new nurses are blocked from helping. We want a review on access to Band 5 roles and improvements to support into practice.

Nurses train for years to join the NHS, but when qualified, some find they can’t get jobs. We feel too many roles are for internal applicants only or require experience they haven't had the chance to gain. There are many ready to care for patients but are being shut out. We think the system is failing both nurses and the public.

Health and education are devolved matters, which means that the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive set policies for students domiciled in their respective countries, putting in place arrangements that best suit their independent NHS and education systems.

In England, Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) train the nursing and midwifery workforce for the whole system, including the NHS. Although decisions about recruitment are a matter for individual employers, who manage this at a local level to ensure they have the staff needed to deliver safe and effective care, we find it unacceptable that some newly qualified nurses and midwives in England are experiencing difficulties securing a role after qualifying, especially when the health and care system has been overworked for years.

This is a complex issue driven by a variety of factors, including the timing of recruitment cycles and the geographical distribution of vacancies compared to newly qualified nurses and midwives. The NHS has also seen improved retention rates meaning employers are less able to over-recruit at risk, compared to previous years.

Currently, there are approximately 26,000 registered nurse vacancies across the NHS in England, with further vacancies in the social care, voluntary, charitable and independent sectors. However, not all of these vacancies are at entry level (Band 5).

Although the national position shows that current vacancies exceed student outturn for this year, the level of vacancies by profession, branch and location differs at local level across the country.

Following changes made to the NHS bursary scheme in 2017 by the previous Government, direct education commissioning of nursing and midwifery programmes was removed from the NHS, allowing higher education institutes to set course intake levels. While this change provided opportunities for expansion with a greater focus on market demand from prospective students, it reduced the ability to align student intakes to local service need.

However, given the size of the current vacancy levels, NHS England are committed to supporting students to secure roles across the health and care system.

Actions to support students securing roles:

NHS England regional teams are working with education providers and employers across their geographies to develop time-limited recovery plans to ensure job opportunities across the NHS and wider health and care system are maximised to support newly qualified nurses to find a role as soon as possible after qualification and transition into the workplace. This includes addressing the issues reported by students in relation to access to Band 5 roles, prohibitive requirements in job adverts and greater support for students.

Recovery plans include a focus on:

• Working with employers to understand current recruitment plans and actions to release more entry level roles to recruitment. • Working with employers to ensure that, where appropriate, job descriptions for advertised posts are available to newly qualified nurses. This builds on previous direct communications from the Chief Nursing Office (CNO) for England to all NHS Chief Nurses. • Assessing options for internal recruitment to more senior roles to release more roles at entry level. • Options for providing short term employment opportunities, with sufficient support, so students can enter the workforce in advance of more substantive roles becoming available. • Working with HEIs to engage directly with students, and provide advice and guidance on options, including job opportunities in other regions or sectors they may not have considered.

The CNO and Chief Workforce Officer held a Summit on 14 July 2025 with NHS England regional leads and supported by the Council of Deans for Health. This was followed by a meeting with Chief Nurses from across England on 15 July and enabled discussion on the current position and an agreed plan of action for all Chief Nurses to review their individual organisation positions and feed this into the regional recovery plans.

Nationally, NHS England are also engaging with the Royal College of Nursing and their student network to gain ongoing insight on students’ experiences, to allow for further action to be taken in specific areas of concern, as identified. In addition to the time-limited regional recovery plans to address the immediate issue, NHS England are also implementing a variety of platforms to ensure a more co-ordinated approach to support future cohorts, including:

• A student hub, with student support materials, which will be live from the end of July 2025. • An educator portal with information to enable educators to support and advise their students as they prepare to apply for roles which will be live from September 2025. • A national roll-out of a supply pipeline analysis tool developed in the London region which will be live from October 2025.

Department of Health and Social Care