GMC National Training Survey 2025 (15 July 2025)

Summary

The General Medical Council (GMC) runs a national training survey every year to gain a comprehensive picture of the experiences of doctors in training and trainers across the UK. The survey is a core part of the GMC's work to monitor and report on the quality of postgraduate medical education and training. 

Content

For the first time, it asked about escalation of care – a critical safety issue. While 79 per cent of trainees reported never feeling apprehensive, 21% said they had hesitated at least once in the last 12 months.

Key findings from this year's survey include:

• 87% of doctors in training rate their clinical supervision highly.
• 90% of trainers said they enjoy their role. However, only 52% can always use their allocated time for training specifically for that purpose
• 26% of trainees and 29% of trainers also said training was adversely affected because rota gaps weren’t dealt with appropriately
• 61% of trainees and 47% of trainers are measured to be at moderate or high risk of burnout. 
• 21% of doctors in training reported feeling apprehensive or hesitant about escalating a patient to a supervising clinician. This rose to 26% for trainees in emergency medicine and medicine, 27% in obstetrics and gynaecology, and 29% in surgery.
• Of those that completed the optional questions on discriminatory behaviours, 39% of gay and 45% of bisexual trainees reported hearing discriminatory comments, compared to 24% of heterosexual trainees. In addition, 17% of female trainees reported being ignored or excluded, compared to 13% of male trainees.
• 34% of UK graduates from an ethnic minority background report experiencing behaviours like micro-aggressions from colleagues, compared to 25% of their white colleagues.