The majority of GPs began to locum with no experience of substantive roles, a new NASGP poll reveals.
In a survey of 129 GPs, 52% said they had not had any experience of job roles before becoming a GP locum.
The next largest cohort, 24%, waited more than 10 years to become a locum.
Between these two, 10% had had up to five years’ experience before becoming a locum, and 13% had five to ten.
GPs face history repeating this summer as GP registrars risk qualifying into a market with no available jobs. Experienced sessional GPs warn that 2025 risks repeating the jobs climate in the early 2010s, when many GPs completed clinical training with no job to go to.
The poll took place after news emerged that up to a thousand GP registrars could complete their certificates of clinical training without a substantive role to go into. Last month in a letter to Wes Streeting, four leading GPs wrote: “As many as a thousand GP registrars completing training this August could be facing unemployment.”
The poll consists of responses by 129 GPs, surveyed from Monday 2 to Thursday 5 June 2025.
Since then salaried GPs have been recommended for a sub-inflationary pay award. Meanwhile, GP locums are turning to childminding and teaching to pay the bills.
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, said: “There has always been an inherent risk of going straight into locuming. The uncertainty of getting work and professional isolation are fairly obvious, but no one can quite prepare new GP locums for the often unfathomable differences in systems and processes between even neighbouring practices. One doesn’t so much need to know what these differences are, more that they exist, and not take anything for granted.
“It can take years for GPs to build the skills needed to navigate the risks thrown up by working across multiple practices. So to see the BMA’s prediction that so many newly-qualified GPs may not have a substantive job in a supportive practice this summer, and have no choice but to set off alone as a GP locum, will make many of these new GPs question their career choice. Overall, this will do nothing for GP retention.
“Fortunately, the NASGP is here to support GP locums, whether fully experienced or just setting out in their new career. For any GP registrars qualifying this summer, remember that you’re not on your own.”