Data in GMC's The state of medical education and practice in the UK: workforce report 2025 shows that 4,880 doctors, who obtained their primary medical qualification outside of the UK and who had been working in the UK, left in 2024 – a 26% increase on the previous year's 3,869.

It is the first significant year-on-year rise since the pandemic, with 3,968 non-UK qualified doctors leaving in 2022 and 3,824 in 2021. Doctors who qualified outside of the UK currently make up around 42% of the workforce.

Last year also saw a levelling off in the number of international medics joining - 20,060 non-UK qualified doctors joined, only slightly up on the 19,629 in 2023, and a much smaller increase than in previous years going back to the pandemic in 2020.

Of those who took UK registration after passing the GMC's exam for international joiners last year, only around one in eight connected to a designated body – an indicator they are working as a doctor – within six months. That figure was one in five in 2023, and one in four in 2021 and 2022.

GMC chief executive, Charlie Massey, said: ‘Doctors represent a mobile workforce, whose skills are in high demand around the world. Internationally qualified doctors who have historically chosen to work in the UK could quite conceivably choose to leave if they feel they have no future job progression here, or if the country feels less welcoming. Any hardening of rhetoric and falling away of support could undermine the UK's image as somewhere the brightest and the best from all over the world want to work.

‘It is vital that workforce policies do not inadvertently demoralise or drive out the talent on which our health services depend. Doctors who qualified outside of the UK make up 42% of those working in the UK. If we see even a small percentage increase in them leaving, our health services will end up with huge holes that they'll struggle to fill.'

This problem would be compounded in general practice, central to the UK government's vision for neighbourhood health services, where half of first-year trainees in 2024 qualified outside of the UK.

Massey added: ‘Whatever the future makeup of the workforce, we all – from employers to regulators, policymakers to the profession itself – have a duty to recognise the essential contribution all doctors make, irrespective of background, and to ensure that each one is supported and valued accordingly.

‘That's crucial for the professionals providing care but, also, most importantly, for the patients receiving it.'

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Daniel Elkeles, chief executive, NHS Providers, said: 'While we work to create an NHS ‘fit for the future', including recruiting more British staff, we must support the development and wellbeing of present and future international NHS staff.

‘Politicians and public should heed the GMC's warning that hardening rhetoric could put off doctors from wanting to work in the NHS.

‘The NHS is undergoing massive change as we bring to life the government's 10-Year Health Plan. The workforce is our greatest asset in our efforts.  A 10-Year Workforce Plan will be essential to that work.'

Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said: ‘The NHS is seeking to fairly balance the aspirations of UK graduates and the needs of colleagues who trained outside the UK, while at the same time advancing its long-term vision which ensures that more clinical care is delivered in neighbourhood and community settings.

‘A number of workstreams are being taken forward which support these objectives, and the government has committed to creating more training roles for doctors and supporting international doctors into substantive roles within the NHS. Efforts to improve working conditions for resident and locally employed doctors will also have positive effects for both UK-trained and internationally trained doctors working in the NHS.'

Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: ‘The NHS, not least general practice, relies heavily on international medial graduates (IMGs) to deliver the increasing volume and complexity of care patients need.

 

‘If fewer are working in the NHS post-qualification, as today's report finds, it will have consequences for our already overstretched general practice service, and the amount of time patients are waiting for care. This is a deeply concerning trend, and the reasons for it must be identified and addressed.'

The state of medical education and practice in the UK report is available here.