According to Royal College of Nursing there are approximately 40000 registered nurses vacancies only in England
1.
Data for other UK nations is not
available.
Data from Health Foundation shows that UK has fewer nurses relative to the population than the OECD average, and
it is also below many EU countries 2.
There is no live data on how many nurses are currently working in the UK however every nurse (and midwife) need
to
be registered in the Nurses and Midwifes Council (NMC) to have a right to practice.
Every Year NMC releases the report showing the size of the register, the number of joiners and leavers during
that time and a breakdown of the register by age and field of practice.
This does not mean that all registrants are currently working as registered nurses.
There is a slight increase in a number of nurses and midwives registered to work in the UK, with a total of 693618 people in 2018 compared with 689738 people in 2017.
The total number of first joiners continues to fall, with the lowest number since 2014.
For the second succeeding year, the number of leavers is larger than the number of joiners. However, in
comparison to 2017, the number of leavers decreased by 5577 in 2018.
The two largest age groups on the register are people aged 41–50 and aged 51-60. Together these two age
groups
account for 55 percent of the total register.
Increases to the over 50 age bracket could be linked to changes in the wider UK workforce, where the number of
older workers is growing.
Although the total number of nurses increased slightly, in the last two years the number of nurses flowing out of the system exceeded those coming into the system. Also, because of Brexit and uncertainty around it, the number of nurses coming from the EU decreased dramatically. At the same time, due to the growing elderly population and a rising number of people with multiple long-term illnesses the demand for care is increasing.