Medical Licensing Assessment

  1. Summary
  2. Working as a doctor in the UK
  3. Medical Licensing Assessment
  4. Types of registration
  5. How to register
  1. Evidence you need to provide
  2. Being honest in your application
  3. Before you start practising
  4. Ready to apply

Changes to assessments

When a doctor applies to work in the UK, we must be sure they are safe to do so. We already check this in a number of ways depending on where a doctor gained their medical degree.

To build on our existing assurance work, we’re introducing the Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA) to test the core knowledge, skills and behaviours of doctors who want to practise medicine in the UK.

All medical students graduating from UK universities from the academic year 2024–25 onwards will be required to pass the MLA as part of their degree before they can join the medical register. 

International doctors who currently take PLAB will continue to do so, but in 2024 the test will become compliant with the requirements of the MLA.

More information is available on our MLA webpages.

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