UK Specialty training prioritisation for 2027 is confirmed: the same immigration statuses stay, and there's no "significant NHS experience" route

What's happened

UK graduate prioritisation became law on 5 March 2026, through the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act. It delivers the government's 10-Year Health Plan commitment to prioritise UK medical graduates, and doctors with significant NHS experience, for training places.

However, the government has now laid the regulations, and these outline who else gets priority for specialty training from 2027. They come into force on 1 January 2027, across the whole UK.

Who gets priority from 2027

You're in the priority group for specialty training if any one of these applies to you.

• You're a UK medical graduate.
• You graduated from a medical school in Ireland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland.
• You've completed, or you're on, the UK programme before the stage you're applying for. For a first stage post that's the UK Foundation Programme. For a later stage it's the previous stage of that training, or the Foundation Programme.
• You're a British citizen, or an Irish citizen who doesn't need permission to enter or remain in the UK.
• You're a Commonwealth citizen with the right of abode in the UK. Being a Commonwealth citizen on its own isn't enough.
• You have indefinite leave to remain (ILR), or settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.

None of the groups above will be prioritised over another: they all have the same priority as each other. For the priority group, offers go in rank order, based only on how you did in the selection process.

What happened to significant NHS experience?

The Act left that extra group to be decided later, by significant NHS experience or by immigration status. When I covered the 2026 recruitment figures, it was expected to be significant NHS experience, and as recently as 25 August, how to define and evidence it was still being worked on.

Unfortunately, these regulations don't define it. In 2026, immigration status was used as a proxy for the doctors most likely to have NHS experience, and these regulations seem to carry that proxy forward from 2027, using the same list.

What it means for IMGs

If you're an international medical graduate (IMG), you won't be prioritised unless you meet one of the criteria above. There's no number of years in an NHS job that gets you priority on its own. Years of NHS experience only matter if they lead to indefinite leave to remain (ILR), and it's the ILR that puts you in the priority group.

Priority now starts at shortlisting

In 2026, prioritisation only applied when offers were made. From 2027, it applies at shortlisting too, when deciding who gets invited to interview, and again when offers are made. So whether you're in the priority group can now decide whether you're interviewed at all.

If you're not in the priority group, you can still apply. If you're invited to interview and you're appointable, you may still be offered a post once everyone in the priority group has been considered.