Workplace experiences 2026

Executive summary

This report sets out our insights on doctors’ workplace experiences from the Barometer survey 2025 and supplementary research.

The chapters that follow analyse the trends in fuller detail, but key overall conclusions can be drawn: 

• Overall, several workplace experience measures declined slightly for doctors in 2025, after two years of improvement. 
• The proportion of doctors who report that they feel unable to provide sufficient patient care remains at a concerning level. New data shows that most doctors report that coordination between primary and secondary care is not effective, but many workplace improvements are being seen locally.
• Early career doctors report significant challenges, including around progression. This is particularly the case for those in Locally Employed (LE) roles who qualified less than five years ago, as well as doctors in foundation training.
• Trainers continue to face greater pressure and are less satisfied than in 2024.  

As governments in the four UK nations take forward their workforce plans, it is essential that they recognise and take steps to address these pressures to secure a sustainable medical workforce for the future.

Read the executive summary 

• Read the English executive summary in the full report
• Read the Welsh executive summary

Foreword

Health services continue to face significant operational strain, with workforce capacity stretched across much of the system. This year's Barometer survey findings show that, after two years of improvement, some aspects of doctors' working lives worsened slightly in 2025, reinforcing how vulnerable progress remains to wider system pressures.

For doctors, the challenge lies not only in the volume or complexity of need, but in the way everyday working conditions affect the care they can provide for patients.

Doctors are clear about what good care looks like. They describe it as timely, patient-centred, and focused on the whole person. Yet many tell us that, in practice, it’s hard to meet this standard of care. Around four in ten doctors (41%) report difficulty providing sufficient patient care at least once a week, rising to six in ten GPs (60%). This is not through a lack of clinical ability, professionalism, or commitment, but because of pressures in their working environment. Unless these pressures are addressed, doctors will continue to struggle to deliver the care patients need and expect. However committed doctors may be, the quality of care they are able to provide is shaped by the conditions in which they work.

Doctors tell us that being unable to deliver the care their patients need can affect their wellbeing, professional fulfilment, and sense of purpose. The distress this can cause may make it harder to retain them in the profession and lead to a vicious cycle, with doctors reducing their hours or leaving practice altogether, resulting in increased pressure on those who remain.

The report also highlights other important issues shaping doctors’ working lives and careers. These issues differ between groups. Foundation doctors and recently qualified locally employed doctors report particular challenges around the provision of patient care and career progression. This underlines the importance of clearer development routes and better support for doctors outside formal training pathways. Trainers, meanwhile, face increasing pressure in a role that is critical to developing and supporting the next generation of doctors.

However, there are also areas where progress is being made, including in parts of primary care. More than a quarter of all doctors (26%) identified at least one improvement introduced in the last year that had helped them provide better patient care. While not all doctors reported a positive change, many of the examples given were encouraging because they were achievable and scalable with the right support. They included changes that helped make day-today work easier by releasing time, streamlining processes, and improving coordination. Technological innovation featured strongly among the developments doctors viewed positively.

The challenge now is turning local gains into system-wide improvement. That will not be straightforward when many doctors report poor coordination across the system. Only 20% of doctors agreed that care across primary and secondary settings is effectively coordinated. When pathways are poorly connected, even sustained efforts by individual teams can fail to translate into better, safer care for patients.

Poor coordination also has consequences for workforce sustainability. Doctors who report a lack of continuity for patients face a higher risk of burnout, while uncertainty about roles and job plans can add to the pressure, particularly in primary care. Improving coordination is central both to patients’ experiences of care, and doctors’ ability to deliver it.

While there are important national differences across the four countries of the UK, the broad themes identified in this report are evident throughout the system. This year’s findings show that progress is possible and good practice approaches should now be adopted more widely. The evidence in this report suggests that even modest innovations can make a meaningful difference. Implemented at scale, they could materially improve care across the UK.

That will require action across the system, focused on better coordination between services and on giving doctors the support and conditions they need to deliver the good, safe care their patients rely on. 

Chapter 1: Declining experiences warn of future risks

An overall decline in doctor satisfaction in 2025 

Overall doctor satisfaction declined slightly in 2025, returning to 2023 levels. Across doctor groups, there are differences in how much satisfaction has changed, and in the factors driving these changes:

• In previous years, changes in overall satisfaction have been associated with changes in workload. However, the 2025 trend doesn’t reflect this for all doctor groups. 
• Our data suggest that changes in satisfaction in 2025 for more experienced doctor groups – general practitioners (GPs) and doctors on the specialist register – were related to workloads, including training responsibilities and coordination of patient care.
• In contrast, for doctors in training and locally employed (LE) doctors, satisfaction was linked to development and career progression. 

Poor working environments impact on patient care 

Our commissioned qualitative research shows that doctors have a clear sense of what ‘sufficient care’ means – it must be timely, patient-centric, and ensure that the needs of the ‘whole patient’ are considered. 

Systemic issues limit doctors’ ability to provide ‘timely’ patient care, particularly in general practice. This includes treatment delays, administrative burdens, and the increasing complexity of patient cases.  

System complexities also affect patient care. Only one in five doctors (20%) agreed that coordination between primary and secondary care works effectively. GPs (12%) and specialists (15%) were even less likely to agree.  

Workplace improvements, including new technology, have helped to improve patient care 

A quarter of doctors (26%) said they had seen at least one workplace change in the past year that helped them provide better patient care.  

The most commonly reported improvements were in staffing and workforce planning (10%), and technology (8%). These improvements were most frequently reported by doctors facing the greatest challenges, with GPs most likely to mention at least one improvement (37%). 

The most commonly mentioned technological improvements were: 

• the rollout of better patient information systems 
• use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support documentation and administrative tasks.  

However, successfully introducing new technologies requires investment, including training, to avoid creating additional complexity and difficulties. 

Early career doctors report significant challenges, particularly around progression 

Doctors who qualified within the last five years were less likely to say they were satisfied or felt able to progress their careers in the way they wanted compared with 2024. 

Competition for training places was the main barrier to career progression, reported by 94% of doctors in foundation training and 96% of recently qualified (within the last five years) LE doctors, who felt they were not able to progress their careers in the way that they wanted.  

Trainers have reduced capacity to support less experienced colleagues 

In 2025, the proportion of doctors on the specialist register who were satisfied fell notably compared with 2024.  

This was driven by specialist trainers (those who acted as a named clinical or educational supervisor for postgraduate trainees). High clinical demand and a lack of protected time make prioritising trainer roles difficult. 

This is particularly concerning as the future of the workforce relies on their support to develop the autonomy and confidence of less experienced doctors.

We must focus on the factors that give doctors professional fulfilment 

Many of the challenges doctors reported in 2025 fall under the ABC (autonomy, belonging, competence) framework of doctor wellbeing and motivation. Although improving workload issues and workplace conditions can prevent dissatisfaction, improving levels of satisfaction requires a focus on the core psychological motivators of autonomy, belonging, and competence. 

To reach higher levels of satisfaction, we should focus on addressing the motivators that give doctors purpose and professional fulfilment. Interventions must be tailored to the challenges facing different groups, helping to improve doctors’ wellbeing and patient care. 

Chapter 2: Barriers and enablers to providing sufficient patient care

Doctors have clear and consistent views on what good patient care looks like 

We commissioned qualitative research to understand why two in five doctors (41% in 2025) experience persistent challenges with providing ‘sufficient care’ to patients. 

Our findings show that doctors are clear about what ‘sufficient care’ means – it must be timely, patient-centric, and ensure that the needs of the ‘whole patient’ are considered. 

When doctors cannot provide sufficient care, they experience emotional strains, such as feelings of frustration and a loss of professional fulfilment. Some also described suffering moral injury. 

System pressures – including poor coordination – are making it difficult for doctors to deliver sufficient care 

The most common systemic barriers to providing good patient care have improved slightly in the past two years, particularly those linked to delays and timeliness.  

However, these barriers are still at high levels. For instance, over half of doctors (53%) told us that delays to providing care, treatment, or screenings were a barrier in 2025. 

A new question in 2025 shows that poor coordination between primary and secondary care is a major challenge. Only one in five doctors (20%) agreed that this coordination is currently effective, and this is made worse by growing case and system complexity.  

Poor coordination is also linked to greater burnout risk among doctors, and higher reports of patient safety or care being compromised. 

Improvements to workforce planning, staff wellbeing, and technology are emerging locally 

Doctors are adapting and finding ways to improve care despite these systemic challenges. In 2025, 26% of doctors reported they’d seen at least one improvement that helped them provide good patient care in the past year. 

These were often locally implemented changes, focused on managing time and complexity better. Time and capacity gained from these improvements are then ‘reinvested’ in improving the quality and depth of care provided. 

Doctors mentioned improvements across:  

• workforce planning 
• technology (including the use of artificial intelligence-powered tools) 
• process improvements 
• staff culture or wellbeing. 

Where doctors saw these improvements, satisfaction and feelings of being able to influence change were much higher. 

Doctor groups facing the greatest challenges in providing sufficient patient care, such as general practitioners (GPs), were the most likely to report improvements. 

Chapter 3: Experiences of early career doctors and specialist trainers

Doctors in foundation training report challenges around patient care and progression

Consistent with 2024, doctors in foundation training were less likely than doctors in training overall to agree they can progress their career in the way that they want and that they have sufficient access to learning or development opportunities. They were more likely to have had difficulty at least once a week providing sufficient patient care and to say leaving the UK profession was their most likely change. In 2025, the experiences of these doctors had worsened in some areas, including feeling able to progress their career as they wanted and feeling unable at least once a week to cope with their workload.

Competition for training places was a key concern for doctors in foundation training. Almost two thirds (64%) of doctors in foundation training disagreed that they were able to progress their career in the way they want, and most of these cited ‘competition for training positions’ as a barrier.  

Recently qualified LE doctors’ experiences are particularly poor 

Recently qualified locally employed (LE) doctors reported particularly poor workplace experiences in comparison to LE doctors overall. This was consistent with 2024, but in the context that the experiences of LE doctors overall had worsened in 2025. They reported a range of more negative workplace experiences compared with all LE doctors, including being less likely to be satisfied. They were also more likely to be at high risk of burnout, to be struggling with their workload, and to have had difficulty at least once a week providing sufficient patient care. 

Recently qualified LE doctors were less likely to agree that they can progress their career in the way that they want than LE doctors overall and to feel supported by non-clinical management. 

The experiences of LE doctors vary by place of qualification

Recently qualified UK graduate LE doctors were more likely to have found it difficult at least once a week to provide sufficient patient care, to have experienced compromised patient safety or care, and to have said leaving the UK profession is the change they are most likely to make. However, they were more likely to feel part of a supportive team, and supported by immediate colleagues and senior medical staff. 

Recently qualified non-UK graduate LE doctors’ experiences were generally in line with the negative experiences of LE doctors overall. However, in addition they were more likely to be at high risk of burnout and to be struggling with workload. 

LE doctors who are experienced but recently joined UK practice have become less positive

LE doctors who have been qualified for at least five years, but who joined the UK register less than five years ago, reported more positive experiences than LE doctors overall. However, their experiences have worsened across multiple measures compared with 2024. This includes being more likely to be at high risk of burnout, to be struggling with workload, and to disagree that they can influence change in their workplace. 

Specialist trainers report worsening experiences

Doctors on the specialist register saw the second largest drop in satisfaction of any doctor group. The fall was significant for specialist trainers, but specialist non-trainer satisfaction was similar to 2024. Specialist trainers reported poorer experiences than specialist non-trainers, including higher risk of burnout, struggling with workload, and difficulty providing sufficient patient care at least once a week. 

The experiences of specialist trainers and non-trainers have moved apart for some workload measures. Between 2022 and 2024, both groups saw similar declines in high burnout risk and in reports of workloads contributing to compromised patient safety or care. However, in 2025 these metrics remained steady for non-trainers, but worsened notably for trainers. 

The diverging workload experiences of specialist trainers and non-trainers appear to be linked with future intentions. Trainers were more likely than non-trainers to intend to reduce their contracted hours or to move to a role with less clinical workload. 

Chapter 4:  Workplace experiences by UK country

Overall trends in doctors’ workplace experiences are broadly consistent across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, there are some notable differences at country level, particularly in perceptions of workload and staffing pressures, experiences of coordination across services, levels of satisfaction, and risk of burnout.  

Doctors in England reported experiences largely in line with the UK average. 

Doctors in Northern Ireland reported the clearest improvements, with significant reductions in difficulties providing sufficient patient care and working beyond rostered hours. They were the most likely of the four UK countries to feel part of a supportive team but were most likely to disagree that patient care is effectively coordinated between primary and secondary care. 

Doctors in Scotland reported a slightly more mixed picture in 2025. While they reported strong feelings of support and autonomy, they were more likely to find it difficult to provide sufficient patient care.

Doctors in Wales reported the greatest workload and patient safety concerns. They were the most likely to have worked beyond rostered hours, witnessed patient safety being compromised, and noted workload pressures as a barrier to patient care. 

These differences between countries reflect variation in local systems, pressures, and workforce context, but do not change the overall UK-wide picture. While solutions should be coordinated at a UK level, local adaptation remains essential.