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.

As of September 2023, there were a total of 382,485 full-time equivalent (FTE) nurses, midwives, and ambulance staff in NHS Hospitals and Community Health Service (HCHS) in England.

From 2009 to 2023, the number of support staff for doctors, nurses, and midwives in England's National Health Service (NHS) increased, reaching roughly 299 thousand full-time equivalent employees as of November 2023. This statistic shows the total number of support doctors, nurses and midwives in the NHS Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce in England from 2009 to 2023.

The number of HCHS doctors leaving generally increased during the period reaching 21,000 leavers in the year 2022/23, the highest reported in the period analyzed, and over a seven percent increase from the figure reported a year earlier.

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.

Please note: Revisions were made as follows on 12 January 2011 to certain GP figures for 2009 published on 25 March 2010, to correct miscoding of GP type. The NHS IC apologises for any inconvenience caused. National headcount totals for 'GP Providers' and 'Other GPs' were revised from 28,607 to 27,613 and from 7,310 to 8,304 respectively. The National level total figure for 'All Practitioners' remains unchanged at 40,269 and no other national level headcount figures are affected. National full time equivalents totals for 'GP Providers' and 'Other GPs' were revised from 26,245 to 25,378 and from 5,866 to 6,733 respectively. The National level total figure for 'All Practitioners' remains unchanged at 36,085 and no other national level full time equivalent figures are affected. All NHS Staff refers to those directly employed by the NHS in Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) and by GP practices contracted to the NHS. It excludes high street dentists and ophthalmic practitioners. This publication is made up of three main staff group areas, which can be found by following the links: Non-Medical Staff 1999 - 2009 Medical and Dental Staff 1999 - 2009 General Practice Staff 1999 - 2009

In the financial year 2023/24, the NHS spent 81.7 billion British pounds on permanent and bank staff. Over the years, the amount of spending on the NHS workforce has increased significantly, especially the year 2020/21 where a 12.6 percent increase was observed. However, the NHS's share of revenue expenditure spent on staff has remained relatively stable in the past 10 years.

*** This dataset has been discontinued from November 2015 - please refer to "NHS Workforce - Medical Staff" and "NHS Workforce - Non Medical Staff" datasets using the additional links below *** Provisional monthly figures for headcount, full time equivalent and role count of NHS Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) staff groups working in England (excluding primary care staff). As expected with provisional statistics, some figures may be revised from month to month as issues are uncovered and resolved. No refreshes of the provisional data will take place either as part of the regular publication process, or where minor enhancements to the methodology have an insignificant impact on the figures at a national level. The monthly publication is an accurate summary of the validated data extracted from the NHS's HR and Payroll system. It has a provisional status as the data may change slightly over time where trusts make updates to their live operational systems. Given the size of the NHS workforce and the changing composition, particularly during this period of transition, it is likely that we will see some additional fluctuations in the workforce numbers over the next few months reflecting both national and local changes as a result of the NHS reforms. 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.

In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, information on NHS staff absence has been published to support transparency and understanding of NHS activity and capacity. Figures show the number and percentage of NHS staff absent due to COVID-19 related illness, self-isolation or otherwise by date. The data are taken from management information and are subject to change. They have not been subject to the same validation processes undertaken for official statistics releases.

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 39.2 thousand staff, and amounted to approximately 35.5 thousand in 2022.

Assignment count and Full-time equivalent of directly employed NHS staff by grade and area of work. General Medical and Dental Practitioners are excluded as they are independent NHS contractors.

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.

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 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. This publication of April 2020 data features a supplementary file which shows trends in HCHS workforce data observed during the NHS response to the Covid-19 pandemic. 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

A provisional view of GPs by type working in General Practice .

The general practice data records numbers and details of GPs in England. Time series data is available within the excel tables together with more detailed information for December 2016 data for England, by NHS England Regions, NHS England Region Local Offices, Clinical Commissioning Groups and practice.

This report is one of several publications presenting details of staff numbers within the NHS workforce. Links to these publications are at the bottom of the page.

Note: This publication only includes information on GPs, other practice staff groups including Nurses are not included.

Given the classification of ‘Provisional Experimental statistics’ NHS Digital invited comments and feedback on the methodology applied which were reviewed over the summer and incorporated in revisions as part of this publication. Feedback is welcomed via email.

Please email us with your comments and suggestions, clearly stating NHS Workforce as the subject heading, via enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk or 0300 303 5678.

For more details see: http://www.content.digital.nhs.uk/article/2021/Website-Search?productid=...

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Background
The Commission for Health Improvement (CHI), in conjunction with the Department of Health (DH), appointed Aston University to develop and pilot a new national National Health Service (NHS) staff survey, commencing in 2003, and to establish an advice centre and web site to support that process. Administration of the programme was taken over by the Healthcare Commission in time for the 2004 series. On the 1st April 2009, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was formed which replaced the Healthcare Commission (users should note that some of the surveys in the series conducted prior to this date will still be attributed to the Healthcare Commission). In 2011 the Department of Health took over management of the survey. Since 2013 NHS England (NHSE) have been in charge of the survey programme. Researchers at Aston University were responsible for the initial development of the survey questionnaire instrument, and for the setting up of the NHS National Staff Survey Advice Centre. From 2011, Picker Institute Europe took over from Aston University as survey contractors. All organisations concerned worked in partnership to consult widely with NHS staff about the content of the new national survey. The work was conducted under the guidance of a stakeholder group, which contained representatives from the staff side, CQC, DH, human resources directors, Strategic Health Authorities and the NHS workforce.

Aims and conduct of the survey
The purpose of the annual NHS staff survey is to collect staff views about working in their local NHS trust. The survey has been designed to replace trusts' own annual staff surveys, the DH '10 core questions', and the HC 'Clinical Governance Review' staff surveys. It is intended that this one annual survey will cover the needs of HC, DH and trusts. Thus, it provides information for deriving national performance measures (including star ratings) and to help the NHS, at national and local level, work towards the 'Improving Working Lives' standard. The design also incorporates questions relating to the 'Positively Diverse Programme'. Trusts will be able to use the findings to identify how their policies are working in practice. The survey enables organisations, for the first time, to benchmark themselves against other similar NHS organisations and the NHS as a whole, on a range of measures of staff satisfaction and opinion. From 2013, the NHS Staff Survey went out to all main trust types - social enterprises, clinical commissioning groups and clinical support units were able to opt themselves in to the survey. Organisations were allowed to conduct the survey electronically and to submit data for an entire census or extended sample of their organisation. Previously the sample was restricted to 850 staff.

The collection of data (i.e. the survey fieldwork) is conducted by a number of independent survey contractors (see documentation for individual survey information). The contractors are appointed directly by each NHS trust in England and are required to follow a set of detailed guidance notes supplied by the Advice Centre (see web site link above), which covers the methodology required for the survey. For example, this includes details on how to draw the random sample, the requirements for printing of questionnaires, letters to be sent to respondents, data entry and submission. At the end of the fieldwork, the data are then sent to the Advice Centre. From the data submitted, each participating NHS trust in England receives a benchmarked 'Feedback Report' from the Advice Centre, which also produces (on behalf of the Department of Health) a series of detailed spreadsheets which report details of each question covered in the survey for each participating trust in England, and also a 'Key Findings' summary report covering the survey findings at national level. Further information about the survey series and related publications are available from the Advice Centre web site (see link above).


As in previous years, the 2010 survey contained different versions of the core questionnaire for each of the four main sectors (acute, ambulance, mental health and primary care). The majority of the content is the same across the different versions of the core questionnaire but there are a few sector-specific questions. A few questions were dropped and some added for 2010 - see Appendix 9 of the Guidance Notes document for details of changes.


Main Topics:
Topics covered in the survey include: work-life balance; appraisal; training, learning and development; team working; health and safety; errors and incidents witnessed; job characteristics and arrangements; management and supervision; perceptions of organisation worked for; harassment, bullying and violence; and respondents' demographic characteristics.

Sector-specific questions include:...

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 maintenance and works support staff in the National Health Service (NHS) reached a total of 617 full-time equivalent employees in November 2023. This statistic shows the total number of maintenance and works support staff for ambulance services in the NHS Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce in England from 2009 to 2023, as of November of each year.

Assignment count and Full-time equivalent of directly employed NHS staff by grade and area of work. General Medical and Dental Practitioners are excluded as they are independent NHS contractors.