Physicians (per 1,000 people) in United Kingdom was reported at 3.174 in 2022, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. United Kingdom - Physicians - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on March of 2025.

In 2024, there were over 318 thousand medical practitioners employed in the United Kingdom. This is an increase from 2010 when there were 227 thousand doctors in the UK. Between these years, the number of medical practitioners has experienced little fluctuations with large increases since 2020 (which could be due to temporary emergency registration measures taken up during the pandemic). Patterns of employment in the UK health sector The number of health professionals overall in the UK stood at 1.7 million in 2024, also a large increase in the number of workers from 2010. The number of nurses in the UK has also been increasing since 2010, amounting to 704 thousand in 2023. Impact of Brexit Doctors who qualified in a country from the European Economic Area (EEA) took up almost 10 percent share of the total doctors registered in the UK in 2023. This is the lowest proportion since 2011, although the decline had started prior to the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

In 2025, out of the 395 thousand registered doctors in the United Kingdom, 202 thousand were men and 193 thousand were women. There was a more pronounced gender gap among specialist doctors in the UK, with 69 thousand men to nearly 44 thousand women qualified on the specialist register. Although on the GP register, women outnumber men with over 45 thousand female GPs to nearly 35 thousand male GPs. Gender distribution of UK doctors by age While there are more male doctors than female doctors in total, the gender distribution of doctors in the UK looks different depending on the age group. Female doctors outnumber their male counterpart in all age groups under 45 years old. Therefore, as more doctors retire, the proportion of female doctors will increase. Worldwide make-up of doctors in the UK Although the majority of medical practitioners in the UK received their medical qualification from within the UK, there is still a significant number of doctors who graduated outside the UK. As of 2024, some 10 percent of registered doctors in the UK are from the European Economic Area (EEA) while a further third are international medical graduates (IMG) indicating the reliance of the NHS on immigration to support the organization’s workforce.

Among OECD countries in 2022, South Korea had the highest rate of yearly visits to a doctor per capita. On average, people in South Korea visited the doctors 15.7 times per year in person. Health care utilization is an important indicator of the success of a country’s health care system. There are many factors that affect health care utilization including healthcare structure and the supply of health care providers.

OECD health systems

Healthcare systems globally include a variety of tools for accessing healthcare, including private insurance based systems, like in the U.S., and universal systems, like in the U.K. Health systems have varying costs among the OECD countries. Worldwide, Europe has the highest expenditures for health as a proportion of the GDP. Among all OECD countries, The United States had the highest share of government spending on health care. Recent estimates of current per capita health expenditures showed the United States also had, by far, the highest per capita spending on health worldwide.

Supply of health providers

Globally, the country with the highest physician density is Cuba, although most other countries with high number of physicians to population was found in Europe. The number of graduates of medicine impacts the number of available physicians in countries. Among OECD countries, Latvia had the highest rate of graduates of medicine, which was almost twice the rate of the OECD average.

As of September 2024, there were 146,387 full-time equivalent (FTE) doctors in NHS Hospitals and Community Health Services (HCHS) in England, which is more than two thousand times the number reported in September 1995.

The number of doctors registered in the United Kingdom has increased over the period observed, from 240 thousand in 2006 to over 393 thousand in 2024. This included 110,444 specialist doctors and 80,540 general practitioners (GPs). Registered doctors do not all have a license to practice, nor are they necessarily employed.

In 2023, there were approximately 227 thousand healthcare physicians employed in the United Kingdom (UK). Since 2000, the number of physicians has increased by roughly 100 thousand, steadily growing year-on-year. This figure includes all physicians who provide services for patients, including specialized physicians.

This report shows monthly numbers of NHS Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) staff working in NHS Trusts and CCGs in England (excluding primary care staff). Data are available as headcount and full-time equivalents and for all months from 30 September 2009 onwards. These data are 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/January (showing September statistics) March (showing December statistics) June (showing March statistics) Quarterly NHS Staff Earnings, 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. Following feedback from data users, there is a change to the HCHS doctor grades of 'Associate Specialist' and 'Specialty Doctor' in relevant tables in this release. Two new specialty doctor and specialist grades were introduced in April 2021 and both were reported in NHS Digital tables within the 'Specialty Doctor' grade. However, the new specialist grade is more appropriately classified within the 'Associate Specialist' category. Therefore, from March 2022 these are included within the 'Associate Specialist' category and have been removed from the 'Specialty Doctor' category. The March 2022 data in this publication reflects this new approach, and the time series back to April 2021 has also been revised in relevant tables. An issue has been identified with the provisional data for April 2022, whereby records for a few thousand staff have not been joined correctly in the ESR database. This does not appear to be having a noticeable effect on the data presented in this publication. Further information will be included in the full April 2022 publication, if the issue is not resolved. 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.

In 2025, roughly 395 thousand doctors were registered in the United Kingdom. The age group with the highest number of doctors is among 30 to 34 years with nearly 66 thousand professionals, followed those aged 35 to 39 years. There were 12.8 thousand doctors aged over 70 years in the UK still registered. Gender distribution of UK doctors In total, there are more male doctors than female doctors registered in the UK. However, there are differences by age group. The majority of younger doctors are female. In fact, there is a clear divide, in 2025, there were more male doctors in all age groups over 45 years, while in all age groups younger than 45 years, female doctors outweighed males. The gender distribution also varies depending on the specialty of the doctor. General Practice Of the 395 thousand doctors registered in the United Kingdom in 2024, around 80.3 thousand were registered as general practitioners. In the last ten years, the ratio of patients per GP practice has been increasing, indicating a stretch on the health service. In 2016, there were, approximately 7.8 thousand patients to each GP practice in England, by 2024 this figure had climbed to over 10 thousand.

This statistic displays the average number of patients per GP practice in the United Kingdom from 2008 to 2017. In 2017, there were, on average, over 7.6 thousand patients to each GP practice in the United Kingdom, the highest ratio in the provided time interval. Note: the NHS now publishes data for each country separately. See the number of patients per GP practice in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

In 2021, there were over 65 thousand general practitioners (GP) practicing in France, the highest number recorded in Europe, followed by Germany with approximately 61 thousand GPs and the Turkey with 60 thousand.

Visiting the doctor

In 2018, a survey of French individuals revealed that 83 percent of respondents consult with a physician at least once a year. Furthermore, 46 percent of those will see their doctor three times or more in a year. In Great Britain, the share of respondents who visit a physician at least once a year is lower than in France with 66 percent going at least once.

Comparisons of other healthcare personnel

Germany had the highest total number of employees in health and social care in Europe in 2021 with over 6.3 million individuals working in this sector, followed by the UK with approximately 4.2 million and France with roughly four million employees in the health and social care sector.

This mixed method study investigated public engagement with methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The growing social scientific literature on public engagement with emerging infectious diseases provided the context. Such engagement can range from anxious, alarmist responses, to more distancing reactions in which ‘risk groups’ are invoked and the sense of invulnerability and equanimity of those not belonging to such groups maintained.

Sixty adults were purposively sampled from Greater London to encompass relevant age, socio-economic and newspaper readership demographics. The sampling frame also ensured that half of the sample had had at least one overnight stay in a hospital within the 12 months prior to the interview. Data were collected by 60 semi-structured interviews, followed by a written self-completed questionnaire. Initially participants were presented with a grid containing four empty boxes. They were verbally prompted to write in each box any word, emotion or image that came to mind when they heard the term ‘MRSA’. A scanned version of the free association grid completed by every respondent is available to accompany every interview. The interviews are also available in Atlas-ti format, in addition to an RTF file of each transcript.

The thematic analysis revealed a shared pattern of response, with few sub-group differences. The key pattern was that MRSA resulted from the dirty state of National Health Service (NHS) hospitals. The role of the hospital had been transgressed: hospitals should cure but, instead, left people (primarily babies, the elderly and ‘the sick’) with a life-threatening condition. Blame for this situation pervaded the data. It was levelled primarily at cleaners, though mismanagement underpinned bad cleaning. Blame was also levelled at those who introduced ‘foreign’ cleaners – and for that matter nurses and doctors – into NHS hospitals. ‘Foreigners’ were seen to play a role in the demise of the NHS, which was seen as a microcosm of Britain. Calls to bring back matron, particularly among the older participants, represented a hope of returning the NHS to an imagined golden age of orderliness, authority and cleanliness. Overall, the invocation of ‘vulnerable’ risk groups left this sample of the general public with a sense of equanimity regarding their own risk, but with a strong sense of blame and worry concerning the general state of the country.

Further information about the study can be found on the ESRC award page.

The United Kingdom has seen a significant increase in the number of general practitioners (GPs) over the past two decades, reaching nearly 54,000 in 2023. This figure represents a slight decrease from the previous year, which marked the highest number of GPs in the country since 2000. Gender dynamics in general practice A notable trend in the UK's GP workforce is the growing representation of female doctors. In NHS England, female GPs outnumbered their male counterparts, with over 20,000 female GPs compared to approximately 17,800 male GPs as of December 2024. This shift is not limited to England, as Scotland and Wales have also seen a rise in female GPs. In Scotland, there were about 3,200 female GPs compared to 1,900 male GPs in 2023, while Wales reported 1,334 female GPs and 996 male GPs in 2024. Comparison with other European countries While the UK has made strides in increasing its GP workforce, it still ranks third in Europe in terms of the number of practicing GPs. France leads with 65,469 GPs, followed by Germany with 60,601 in 2021. It's worth noting that the UK experienced a spike in GP numbers in 2020, likely due to emergency measures implemented during the early stages of the pandemic, including the introduction of a temporary emergency register and earlier registration of graduates.

In 2019, over 21.1 thousand nurses in the United Kingdom held an Asian nationality, while 18.6 thousand nurses had an EU nationality. Furthermore, there were approximately 14.6 thousand Asian doctors in the UK, and 10.4 thousand doctors with an EU nationality. The highest amount of NHS workers from the rest of the World were working as support to clinical staff, with 9.4 thousand categorized in this staff group.

Make up of non-UK NHS workers

The highest share of healthcare employees who were from the EU occur in the younger age groups, with almost 40 thousand employees in the period 2016 to 2018 aged under 34 years of age. While, 39 thousand health care workers in the UK aged between 35 and 44 years are from outside of the EU. 30 thousand NHS employees working in London were EU nationals, the highest amount of any region in the UK although London is one the most populated and most diverse region in the UK.

Impact of Brexit

In 2019, it was found that almost 20 percent of healthcare professionals in the UK knew at least one colleague considering leaving their job due to Brexit. While twelve percent knew a co-worker, who had already left because of the Brexit situation. Due to the large number of workers from the EU in the NHS, the service could be very vulnerable to Brexit and the potential of many employees leaving due to Brexit.

As of December 2024, the majority of GPs in England fell in the age group of 35 to 39 years old. Meanwhile, some three thousand doctors were under 30 years old and over one thousand GPs were aged 65 years and older.

In 2021, there were 27 medical students who graduated per 100,000 population in Latvia, the highest in OECD countries. In comparison there were just 13 graduates of medicine per 100,000 population in the UK, less than half of the top countries. This statistic depicts the number of medical graduates per 100,000 inhabitants in OECD countries in 2021.

As of December 2024, the average number of patients per GP practice in England amounted to over ten thousand. This figure has been increasing since December 2016, when there were 7.7 thousand patients per GP practice in England. GP practices have increasing pressure due to decreasing GP practice numbers and rising demand.

The number of medical graduates in the United Kingdom increased by 305 graduates (+3.45 percent) in 2022 in comparison to the previous year. With 9,140 graduates, the number of medical graduates thereby reached its highest value in the observed period. Medical graduates are students who have graduated from medical school or similar institutions within a given year. Per its definition, the OECD excludes dental, public health, or epidemiology graduates. The rate of medical graduates is of importance especially in countries with physician shortages.Find more key insights for the number of medical graduates in countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Estonia.

This statistic displays the results of a survey asking British people how frequently they visit a primary care physician as of 2018. According to data provided by Ipsos, 24 percent of Brits consult their primary care physician three times or more in year, while 14 percent of respondents stated that they never see their physician.

In 2023, approximately 33.6 thousand dental practitioners were in employment in the United Kingdom (UK). In recent years the number of dental practitioners has generally decreased in the UK, since in 2015 there were still roughly 46 thousand dentists in employment. In the UK, dental practitioners provide general primary care dental services to patients and can either work completely inside the National Health Service (NHS), exclusively privately or a combination of the two.

Who goes to the dentist?

In 2022/23, it was found that only four in ten adults visited the dentist in the past two years. The often-quoted advice is to have a dental check every six months, but the recommended time needed between consultations depends on the oral health of the individual. This means the time between check-ups can range from three months to even two years between consultations.

Dental services

A large number of respondents in a 2022 survey rated their experience of NHS dental services as positive. Some 41.2 percent evaluated the services as very good, while a further 31 percent valued their experience as fairly good. However, public satisfaction of dental services in the UK, and all other services of NHS, was at an all time low in 2022.