RCP responds to the competition ratios for the 2025 recruitment round

Professor Mumtaz Patel, RCP president, said:  

‘These new competition ratios lay bare the crisis facing medical training and resident doctors and send a deeply worrying message to the next generation of doctors.  

‘We hear loud and clear the concerns from our early career doctors who have dedicated years to studying, training, exams and service to the NHS, and are left with no route forward in their chosen career paths. They deserve better. 

‘Today’s figures show that for internal medicine training (IMT), the first step of specialty training to become a consultant physician, there were 8,841 applications for 1,678 posts in 2025 – up from 6,237 applications for 1,698 posts in 2024. That’s a competition ratio of 5.27 this year compared to 3.69 last year.  

‘We need urgent action to address competition ratios and an expansion of both IMT and higher specialty training posts based on population need. The UK government has committed to ensuring doctors leaving medical school in the UK can continue their training in the NHS. It must do this in time for the next recruitment round and recognising NHS experience would be a sensible first step.’ 

Dr Stephen Joseph, co-chair of the RCP’s Resident Doctor Committee, said:  

‘These competition ratios confirm what resident doctors have long known. Our career prospects feel increasingly grim. Year upon year, we have seen competition for training posts rise, leaving more and more early career doctors without a clear path forward.  

‘These chronic bottlenecks in the training pathway leave many doctors extremely worried about their future in medicine. Many have been working in a high pressure NHS environment for years already, and find the door slammed shut on training progression. 

‘We are in the absurd scenario where hospitals are short-staffed because there aren’t enough training posts. Many resident doctors will now be left in limbo – stuck in non-training roles, potentially facing unemployment at the end of foundation training, unable to progress in the NHS training pathway and at high risk of leaving the profession altogether. This represents a significant loss of investment for the health service. After years of training and dedication, we are effectively losing a generation of talented doctors who are ready and able to provide the skilled care the public so desperately need.  

‘We need an urgent expansion in training posts to match the promised expansion of medical school places and meet population need. After all, the current system is pushing many of us out of the training system at the very time we are most needed by patients. This is why we’re asking the UK government to meaningfully engage with resident doctors to improve the quality and experience of training, and consult with us on the 10 Year Workforce Plan.’