As of December 2024, the NHS in England employed a total of 1.5 million staff members (headcount: counting each individual staff member), including 157 thousand HCHS doctors. This makes it the largest employer in England. In terms of staff groups, nurses (and health visitors) represented the biggest number, followed by support to doctors, nurses and midwives.

As of February 2024, the National Health Service (NHS) in England employed a total of 1.34 million staff members on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis, including 140 thousand HCHS doctors. This is less than the number of NHS staff on a headcount basis, as not all employees work full-time. This makes the NHS the largest employer in England. This statistic shows the number of staff on a FTE basis in the NHS Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) in England as of February 2024, by staff group.

This report shows monthly numbers of NHS Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) staff working in NHS Trusts and CCGs in England (excluding primary care staff). Data is available as headcount and full-time equivalents and are available every month for 30 September 2009 onwards. This data is an accurate summary of the validated data extracted from the NHS HR and Payroll system. Additional statistics on staff in NHS Trusts and CCGs and information for NHS Support Organisations and Central Bodies are published each: September (showing June statistics) December (showing September statistics) March (showing December statistics) June (showing March statistics) Quarterly NHS Staff Earnings and monthly NHS Staff Sickness Absence reports and data relating to the General Practice workforce and the Independent Healthcare Provider workforce are also available via the Related Links below. This July 2020 data publication will be the last to include a supplementary file which shows trends in HCHS workforce data observed during the NHS response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Investigations are ongoing into making elements of this publication available ahead of the current schedule. At present it is approximately 12 weeks between the reporting month and the date of publication. Further details will be made available regarding publication outputs when investigations are complete. We welcome feedback on the methodology and tables within this publication. Please email us with your comments and suggestions, clearly stating Monthly HCHS Workforce as the subject heading, via enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk or 0300 303 5678.

From 2009 to 2024, the number of support staff for doctors, nurses, and midwives in England's National Health Service (NHS) overall increased, reaching roughly 297 thousand full-time equivalent employees as of November 2024. This number is down from the 299 thousand reported a year prior.

The General Practice Workforce series of Official Statistics presents a snapshot of the primary care general practice workforce. A snapshot statistic relates to the situation at a specific date, which for these workforce statistics is now the last calendar day each month. This monthly snapshot reflects the general practice workforce at 31 January 2025. These statistics present full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount figures by four staff groups, (GPs, Nurses, Direct Patient Care (DPC) and administrative staff), with breakdowns of individual job roles within these high-level groups. For the purposes of NHS workforce statistics, we define full-time working to be 37.5 hours per week. Full-time equivalent is a standardised measure of the workload of an employed person. Using FTE, we can convert part-time and additional working hours into an equivalent number of full-time staff. For example, an individual working 37.5 hours would be classed as 1.0 FTE while a colleague working 30 hours would be 0.8 FTE. The term “headcount” relates to distinct individuals, and as the same person may hold more than one role, care should be taken when interpreting headcount figures. Please refer to the Using this Publication section for information and guidance about the contents of this publication and how it can and cannot be used. England-level time series figures for all job roles are available in the Excel bulletin tables back to September 2015 when this series of Official Statistics began. The Excel file also includes Sub-ICB Location-level FTE and headcount breakdowns for the current reporting period. CSVs containing practice-level summaries and Sub-ICB Location-level counts of individuals are also available. Please refer to the Publication content, analysis, and release schedule in the Using this publication section for more details of what’s available. We are continually working to improve our publications to ensure their contents are as useful and relevant as possible for our users. We welcome feedback from all users to PrimaryCareWorkforce@nhs.net.

In England, the number of central functions support staff in the National Health Service (NHS) overall increased from 2009 to 2023. In November 2023, it reached over 112 thousand full-time equivalent employees, the highest number recorded during this period. This statistic shows the number of central functions support staff in the NHS Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce in England from 2009 to 2023, as of November of each year.

In England, the number of specialized scientific, therapeutic and technical (ST&T) staff in the National Health Service (NHS) stood over 53 thousand full-time equivalent employees in November 2023. This statistic shows the total number of specialized ST&T in the NHS Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce in England from 2009 to 2023, as of November of each year.

The minimum data set (MDS) collection for health visiting (HV) provides the number of full time equivalent (FTE) health visitors employed by all NHS organisations, Local Authorities and Social Enterprises. It collects information from Area Teams (ATs) that employ health visitors but do not use the Electronic Staff Record (ESR), such as local authorities and some social enterprises. Those NHS organisations using ESR have their HV numbers fed directly into the collection.

The MDS collection for HV differs from the monthly workforce statistics published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre as it is solely focused on health visitors and includes those who are employed by non-NHS organisations and those organisations that do not use ESR over and above those NHS organisations included in the standard monthly workforce statistics.

In 2023, the number of allied health professionals in the National Health Service (NHS) increased from 2009 to 2023, reaching a total of over 88 thousand full-time equivalent employees in November of the latest year. This statistic shows the total number of allied health professionals in the NHS Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce in England from 2009 to 2023, as of November of each year.

There were some 652 thousand full-time equivalent professionally qualified clinical employees in NHS England as of September 2022. This statistic shows the number of professionally qualified clinical staff in the National Health Service (NHS) Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) in England from 1995 to 2022, as of September of each year.

NHS Hospital & Community Health Service (HCHS) monthly workforce statistics: Support to doctors and nursing staff in England by area and level. This provides details of the numbers of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staff employed by the NHS in England in the following support roles: - Nursing Assistant Practitioner - Nursery nurse - Nursing assistant/auxiliary - Nurse learners - Healthcare assistant - Support worker - Clerical & administrative - Estates (maintenance & works) These statistics relate to the contracted positions within English NHS organisations and may include those where the person assigned to the position is temporarily absent, for example on maternity leave.

The aim of this project was to work with employees within a select number of NHS Trusts to co-design, deliver, and evaluate a series of mental health and wellbeing interventions for staff in these organisations. The project began with a cross-organisational survey to understand the working conditions and psychological wellbeing of employees, followed by a series of interviews and focus groups with staff. This led to the development of a wellbeing smartphone app and associated toolkit. 6-8 months following intervention dissemination, the survey and interviews were re-distributed.

Within this dataset, quantitative data collected from organisations pre-and-post intervention is presented. The survey data consists of the management standards indicator tool, perceived stress, Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, and hour disparity (i.e. difference between contracted hours and average hours worked each week), as well as whether the data was pre- or post-intervention.

Research has widely demonstrated the impact that stress at work can have on individual health. For example work stress is related to heart disease, poorer immune system functioning and increased likelihood of developing symptoms of depression. It is the number one cause of long term sickness absence (greater than four weeks), and number two cause of short-term sickness absence, in the UK. Stress not only impacts the individual but also the organisation that they work for. For example, for every individual employed in the UK an average of 7.5 days are lost due to stress sickness absence, with that number increasing to nearly 11 days in the healthcare sector. Indeed, on average, NHS employees take more than 15 days off per year due to stress - twice the national average - with stress sickness absence levels increasing by 37% over the past 3 years. Tackling stress in the NHS is therefore such an important task that it has recently become linked to amounts of funding NHS Trusts receive each year. The main aim of this project is to design a series of stress management interventions to reduce sickness absence in three large NHS Trusts. The interventions will be co-designed with employees using a Participatory Action Research methodology. Through a series of individual interviews, focus groups, and meetings with dedicated wellbeing groups across three participating NHS Trusts, we will design interventions and a wellbeing toolkit for the improvement of stress awareness and communication which will be presented through a smartphone app. An app has been chosen for its ability to be easily accessed and distributed across a wide range and large number of individuals, and because it means information can be disseminated quickly to a wide range of NHS employees. The first of three research objectives is to co-design (alongside NHS employees), distribute, and evaluate a wellbeing toolkit for NHS staff. The toolkit will provide understanding of how to spot and what to do about the signs of work stress in self and others. The second objective is to co-design NHS-specific interventions for the improvement of working conditions. These everyday stressors significantly contribute to the experience of work stress, and thus interventions which are aimed at these stressors are highly sought after. We will therefore co-design, implement and evaluate interventions delivered by the smartphone app for the improvement of these everyday stressors. Finally, NHS organisations consist of an administrative 'hub' organisation which service numerous satellite sites (i.e. hospitals, care centres). This leads to issues with communication of wellbeing initiatives being adequately communicated across the whole organisation. This project will therefore help to disseminate this information widely across participating organisations via the smartphone application, and thus determine best practice to ensure this reach is substantial. There are clear applications for this project, from an individual employee to a wider NHS organisational perspective. Fewer individuals will be affected by stress at work, meaning that individual health will be improved in the short-to-medium term. Organisationally we aim for there to be fewer days lost due to work stress, meaning improved productivity over the short term and reduced sickness absence costs over the long term. Moving beyond the presented project, we will look to expand to a wider proportion of the NHS and other healthcare organisations. The project will also improve public knowledge of the effects of stress at work through public engagement events such as media appearances and dissemination, organisational and policy-maker understanding through an NHS staff wellbeing conference, and academic understanding via a wide range of journal and conference publications

The opinion of NHS staff across England was rather divided when asked about staff shortages within their organization. In 2024, around 43.5 percent of the NHS staff stated not to have enough staff at their organization for them to do their job properly, versus the 34 percent who though staffing levels were adequate. Overall, this is an improvement on staffing levels perceived by staff themselves compared to the previous three years.

The National Health Service (NHS) had around 2.07 million employees as of the second quarter of 2025, making it the largest public sector employer in the United Kingdom. In the same quarter, 1.66 million people worked in education, the second-largest industry in terms of public sector employees.

As of September 2024, there were a total of 405,631 full-time equivalent (FTE) nurses, midwives, and ambulance staff in NHS Hospitals and Community Health Service (HCHS) in England.

In England, the number of administrative support staff in the National Health Service (NHS) increased during this period to reach over 112 thousand full-time equivalent employees in November 2023. This statistic shows the total number of clerical and administrative support staff for doctors, nurses and midwives in the NHS Hospitals and the Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce in England from 2009 to 2023.

Publication changes: Please read the section on 'Notes on changes to publications' within the PDF report as this highlights changes to data currently published and potentially the frequency of future reports. This report shows monthly numbers of NHS Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) staff groups working in Trusts and CCGs in England (excluding primary care staff). Data is available as headcount and full-time equivalents. This data is an accurate summary of the validated data extracted from the NHS's HR and Payroll system. In addition to the regular monthly reports there are a series of quarterly reports which include statistics on staff in Trusts and CCGs and information for NHS Support Organisations and Central Bodies. The quarterly analysis is published each September (June data), December (September data), March (December data) and June (March data). Additional healthcare workforce data relating to GPs and the Independent Healthcare Provider workforce are also available via the Related Links below. We welcome feedback on the methodology and tables within this publication. Please email us with your comments and suggestions, clearly stating Monthly HCHS Workforce as the subject heading, via enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk or 0300 303 5678

As of November 2024, the total number of midwives in England's National Health Service (NHS) Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) stood at 24.7 thousand, up from the 23.3 thousand reported a year prior. The number of midwives employees generally increased from 2009 to 2024.

This statistic displays the number of full time senior managers and managing staff in the NHS in England from 2004 to 2022. The number of senior managers and managing staff in the NHS in England peaked in 2009 at **** thousand staff, and amounted to approximately **** thousand in 2022.