Surgery

Surgery is the second largest specialty in the NHS

It is a great time to join the NHS as a surgeon, with a career in the UK offering competitive salaries, excellent career progression, Specialty Training and Specialtist Registration via CESR or CCT.

Requirements for overseas candidatea to work as a surgeon in the UK?

• IELTS or OET
• MRCS or PLAB
• GMC registration
• EEA applicants will only require GMC registration and IELTS or OET

IMG Library Find out more about IELTS or OET, GMC Registration, PLAB, MRCS or to understand the Route to the UK for an Overseas Surgeon.

What should I know about surgery in the UK? 

As you would expect with such a large medical field, it is broken down into many sub-specialties – cardiothoracic, neurosurgery, oral and maxillofacial, trauma and orthopaedics, ENT, paediatric, plastic, urology, vascular and general surgery.

As a surgeon you would expect to work in an acute or specialist hospital and sometimes in surgical outpatient centers, spending your day in wards or operating theatres

What can you expect to do as part of a typical working week in the NHS?

A typical working week can include outpatient clinics, theatre sessions and emergency lists with certain types of procedure dependent on the sub-specialty chosen. You can also expect to be part of the surgical on-call rota.

Surgeons form crucial parts of an multidisciplinary team alongside a wide range of specialisms within the hospital.

Did you know? The Royal Mardsen was the first hospital in the UK to introduce the da Vinci robotic arm in 2007, now used across 70 hospitals. Next year a robotic surgery system designed in Cambridge, the Versius robot, is expected to operate on UK patients for the very first time, rivalling the da Vinci robotic arm.