International Medical Graduates (IMGs) outside the priority group accepted into UK specialty training has dropped from 28% to 1.8%

There's 2 things to understand about that number. Some IMGs qualify for priority, so it doesn't cover every overseas-trained doctor. And 1.8% is the group's share of accepted places, rather than an individual applicant's chance of getting in.

What changed?

The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act became law in March 2026. For 2026 recruitment, priority applied at the offer stage. Interview scores and ranks were worked out as before, but priority candidates who met the standard for appointment were allocated jobs first.

11 of the 16 specialties assessed had no non-priority acceptances

Non-priority doctors accounted for 51% of applications in 2026, but only 1.8% of accepted places. So this group was still submitting more than half the applications.

Only 5 of the 16 specialties covered had any accepted places from non-priority doctors: emergency medicine, cardiothoracic surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology, and paediatrics. For the other 11, there were none in the provisional figures. So that overall 1.8% doesn't mean the same proportion got into every specialty.

Applications grew much faster than places

Nuffield also looked at what happened over the decade to 2025. Applications for entry-level core and specialty training went from around 16,500 to almost 85,000. Over the same period, the number of posts increased by just 11%.

Applications from UK-trained doctors nearly doubled, while those from overseas-trained doctors increased more than 13-fold. Remember, 1 doctor can make several applications.

And the places didn't grow evenly either. Clinical radiology places increased by 44%, while anaesthetics places fell by 14%. So depending on what you were applying for, the number of places available had moved in completely different directions.

For IMGs who have spent years working in the NHS and still fall outside the priority group, these figures will be difficult to read. You can have spent that time looking after patients, covering shifts and building your experience, while still struggling to get a training place that lets you progress.

What does this mean going forward?

For 2027 applicants, priority will matter earlier in the process, at shortlisting as well as offers. The 2026 immigration criteria also don't automatically carry over, so you need to check the published rules for your recruitment round rather than assume your status stays the same. The extra group for 2027 is expected to be defined by "significant NHS experience" instead, but it hasn't currently been decided what counts as significant: the regulations that will say so haven't been published yet.

The wider issue is how many training places there are. If a specialty has 10 places, changing who gets considered first can change who fills them. Increasing the number of places is a separate step. That step has a date: the government pay deal doctors accepted in June commits to at least 4,000 extra specialty posts over 3 years, rising to 4,500 if there is capacity, with at least 1,000 of them by August 2027.

That's why these results don't, on their own, tell us the training bottleneck has been resolved. They show a substantial shift in who accepted the available places. To understand whether access to training is improving overall, we also need to know how many individual doctors secure a place and how many are still left waiting.