NHSScotland workforce

This release by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) provides phase one of the quarterly update, as at 31 March 2024. This includes the number of staff directly employed by NHS Scotland and the number of vacant posts there were for nursing and midwifery staff, allied health professions, and medical and dental consultants. When describing the size of a particular staff group figures are presented as headcount (actual number of staff).

From the first of April 2024 NHS Agenda for Change staff saw a reduction in their working week from 37.5 hours to 37 hours. The process to update the contracted and conditioned hours for this change in Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS) did not work as expected and as a result, the Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) calculations were incorrect. We are working with partner organisations to update the data and will publish this data once the updates have taken place and our investigations into this change have completed. More information about what data is available in this phase and the data we have planned for the second phase can be found on our Publication timetable.

Total staff

• 187,157 staff employed by NHSScotland
  +0.4% quarter change  |  +3.4% 1 year change  |  +14.0% 5 year change  |  +17.9% 10 year change
  
  
• In the year ending 31 March 2024 there were:
  • 18,526 People who joined NHSScotland
  • 12,546 People who left NHSScotland

Turnover calculations exclude medical and dental staff who are on training grades. 

Medical and dental

• 6,634 number of consultants (excluding Directors)
  2.5% increase over the past year
  
  
• £129.6M spent on agency locums in the year ending 31 March 2024
  8.3% increase on the previous year
  
  
• 451 number of consultant vacancies (headcount)
  3.6% decrease over the past year

Nursing and midwifery

• 77,407 number of staff
  4.0% increase over the past year
  
  
• £490.0M spent on bank and agency staff in the year ending 31 March 2024
  9.5% increase on the previous year
  
  
• 3,382.5 number of vacancies (WTE)
  39.3% decrease over the past year

Allied health professions

• 16,271 number of staff
  4.0% increase over the past year
  
  
• 664.4 number of vacancies (WTE)
  35.8% decrease over the past year

Administrative service

• 34,518 number of staff
  3.4% increase over the past year