New legislation giving priority to UK medical graduates seeking NHS training posts has had a dramatic impact on boosting the number of homegrown doctors, figures suggest.
An analysis of NHS data by the Nuffield Trust think tank found that legal changes in March achieved their aim of prioritising doctors trained in the NHS over those who trained overseas.
The changes were introduced by Wes Streeting when he was health secretary, who said he wanted to “put homegrown talent at the front of the queue for medical training posts”.
Trainee doctors have long argued that far too many candidates are competing for a small pool of available places.
In the decade to 2025, the total number of specialty training applications increased more than five-fold from about 16,500 to almost 85,000 a year, driven mainly by overseas medics.
The new data shows that 28% of doctors accepting a specialty training place (the stage before becoming a GP or consultant) in 2025 were from what is now defined as the “non-priority” group, which includes most doctors who trained overseas.
After the change to prioritise UK graduates in March, this figure fell to 1.8%.
The proportion of doctors accepting NHS specialty training places from the group that includes most overseas-trained doctors has now fallen from more than one in four to fewer than one in 50.
Overall, there were 6,734 acceptances from the priority group (the vast majority of whom trained in the UK) out of 9,351 in 2025.
In 2026, the proportion has risen dramatically so that 9,122 out of 9,286 acceptances are from doctors largely trained in the UK.
Nuffield Trust fellow, Lucina Rolewicz, said: “There is no doubt that the new law has had a big impact in terms of strengthening the domestic training pipeline for doctors.
“The numbers show just how dramatically the rules introduced this year have shifted access to specialty training away from overseas-trained doctors and towards predominantly UK-trained doctors.
“The question now is what this means for the NHS in the longer term.
“The NHS needs to make sure that prioritising homegrown doctors boosts the domestic workforce without reducing the overall supply of doctors and creating concerning staffing gaps.”
The think tank said that in the future, specialties that have historically relied more heavily on overseas graduates could be affected by shortages, including general practice, psychiatry and obstetrics.
The priority group includes NHS-trained doctors and medics who trained in countries where the UK has longstanding reciprocal agreements, including Ireland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
The Department of Health and the British Medical Association (BMA) have been approached for comment.