Executive summary

2019 has seen a shift in pace around the introduction of Pharmacotherapy services resulting in significant numbers of experienced staff being recruited from community and secondary care pharmacy teams. New pharmacy technician and pharmacy support worker roles within Pharmacotherapy services are now also being explored.
The additional demand for pharmaceutical services in Primary Care settings has led to a Scottish Government commitment to increase the number of pre-registration pharmacist places in Scotland over the next three years.
There is evidence that the demand for pharmacy services depends on the size and composition of the population, therefore the projected increase in the size and change in the composition of Scotland’s population is likely to increase the demand for pharmacy services.
There is evidence that the demand for pharmacy services depends on socioeconomic deprivation, therefore the demand for pharmacy services is likely to vary within and between NHS boards according to variation in socioeconomic deprivation.

The ratio of applications to accepted places on four-year MPharm courses in Scotland has been decreasing overall at both providers since 2012.
The number of first-year students on MPharm programmes in Scotland decreased from 290 in 2011-12 to 250 in 2017-18.
The percentage of first-year Scottish-domiciled MPharm students decreased from 93.8% in 2012 to 81.45% in 2017.
The probability of completing the programme in Scotland was 0.82 within four years and over 0.90 within six years
The latest PRPS survey found that most students (94%) qualified from a school of pharmacy in Scotland and 84% planned to remain in Scotland.
101 pharmacists qualified from an independent prescribing course in 2019 compared to 141 in 2018.
There were 64 WTE pharmacy technicians in training in the managed sector in 2019.

The 2019 NHSScotland staff and vacancy survey (covering Acute, Central, Mental Health and Primary Care) showed an 8.0% increase in the number of WTE staff compared to 2018.
The number of WTE pharmacists was 1495.7 and the number of WTE pharmacist vacancies was 146.53.
Since the last Staff and Vacancy survey, WTE numbers increased for Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff. The vacancy rates for all three staff groups also increased.
There was variation between NHS Boards in the number of WTE staff per 10,000.
The 2019 Scottish Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey reported that there were an estimated 1412.61 WTE Pharmacists working in the Community Sector and 61.34 WTE Pharmacist vacancies.
There were no pharmacy occupations on the latest shortage occupation list. The Directors of Pharmacy have requested that Pharmacist and Pharmacy Technician roles be added to the list at the next opportunity.
Since 2014, median gross hourly pay of pharmacists has decreased in both Scotland and the UK. Between 2017 and 2018 the earnings of Pharmacists in Scotland increased and were almost equal to Pharmacist earnings in the UK. Earnings of pharmacy technicians in Scotland have been increasing since 2014 and in 2018 were higher than in the UK overall.

1 Introduction

In April 2009 Audit Scotland found that workforce planning for pharmacy staff was not well developed and recommended that the SG should work with NES, NHS NSS and NHS boards to develop national pharmacy workforce planning information to support NHS boards in taking forward workforce plans and workforce development. In response to this recommendation the SG set up a Pharmacy Action Plan Steering Group and created a Pharmacy Workforce Planning Project, which agreed that NES and NHS NSS would work together to analyse pharmacy workforce data to inform the Pharmacy Action Plan Steering Group. Following a review of pharmaceutical care in Scotland the SG published a vision and action plan, which recommended that

NES, working with key stakeholders such as the Schools of Pharmacy and the NHS boards, should be commissioned to undertake data collection and trend analysis to lead to better supply and demand forecasting, and capacity planning for the pharmacy workforce.

2 The demand for pharmacy services

Audit Scotland reported that the demand for pharmacy services was a function of the size and composition of the population and the level of socioeconomic deprivation. The following sections report the latest population projections for Scotland and the spatial distribution of socioeconomic deprivation in Scotland.

2.1 Population projections

Audit Scotland reported that the demand for pharmacy services was a function of the size and, because the number of medicines people are prescribed rises after age 50, the age distribution of the population. Therefore the expected future demand for pharmacy services depends on the population projections for Scotland.

The population of Scotland is projected to increase by 2% over the ten year period from 2019 to 2029. The proportion of the population aged 50 or over is projected to increase by 6% over the same period.

2.2 The distribution of community pharmacies by SIMD

Audit Scotland reported that the demand for pharmacy services was a function of the level of socioeconomic deprivation. The following chart and map show this relationship in two ways by linking the postcodes of community pharmacies published by PSD of NHS NSS to NHS NSS SIMD data. The chart reports the number of pharmacy contractors in November 2019 by SIMD decile and the map shows the location of pharmacy contractors by SIMD rank.

SIMD is a relative measure of deprivation that ranks each of the 6,976 Data Zones in Scotland from most deprived to least deprived.

There seems to be a positive relationship between the SIMD decile and the number of community pharmacies: there were more community pharmacies in SIMD decile 1, the most deprived decile, compared to SIMD decile 10, the least deprived decile.

The map shows the location of each pharmacy in Scotland and the SIMD 2016 rank of each Data Zone.

2.3 Demand for Pharmacists from NHS Boards

The shape and nature of pharmaceutical services is changing. Significant changes to practice are being driven through the evolution of pharmacotherapy services, automation of dispensaries and stores and digitisation of prescribing, development of large molecule medicine and personalised approaches to treatment choices, all of which will impact on the numbers and skills required by the pharmacy workforce in the future.

Following the introduction of the General Medical Services Contract, 2019 has seen a shift in pace around the introduction of Pharmacotherapy services resulting in significant numbers of experienced staff being recruited from community and secondary care pharmacy teams. In addition, new pharmacy technician and pharmacy support worker roles within Pharmacotherapy services are now being explored.

The demand for pharmacists is also a function of policy objectives. The vision in Prescription for Excellence is that

All patients, regardless of their age and setting of care, receive high quality pharmaceutical care from clinical pharmacist independent prescribers. This will be delivered through collaborative partnerships with the patient, carer, GP and the other relevant health, social care, third and independent sector professionals so that every patient gets the best possible outcomes from their medicines, and avoiding waste and harm.

As part of the support for this vision, the SG allocated funding to NHS boards to employ pharmacists in GP practices:

£16.2m over three years, will be allocated to recruit up to 140 whole time equivalent additional pharmacists with advanced clinical skills training, or those undertaking the training. They will work directly with GP practices to support the care of patients with long term conditions and so free up GP time to spend with other patients. By year 3 all of these pharmacists should be independent prescribers with advanced clinical skills.

The additional 140 WTE pharmacists represents about half of the annual output from the two Schools of Pharmacy in Scotland.

As part of the commitment to establish a sustainable pharmacotherapy service in every practice, the 2018 General Medical Services (GMS) Contract in Scotland announced additional funding to increase the number of pre-registration training posts:

In order to increase the pool of qualified pharmacists to provide the pharmacotherapy service, additional funding has been secured to increase the number of pharmacist training posts from 170 to 200 per year from 2018/19.

Scotland’s Integrated Health and Social Care Workforce Plan for Scotland contains a commitment to

create up to 120 more Pharmacists to work in primary care settings, increasing Pharmacy pre-registration training places by 40 each year over the next 3 years.

This 40 additional places per year is in addition to the 30 new places funded under the GMS contract.

Scottish Government’s Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care stated:

We will deliver the commitment to ensure every GP practice in Scotland has access to a pharmacist with advanced clinical skills.

2.4 Summary

2019 has seen a shift in pace around the introduction of Pharmacotherapy services resulting in significant numbers of experienced staff being recruited from community and secondary care pharmacy teams. New pharmacy technician and pharmacy support worker roles within Pharmacotherapy services are now also being explored.
The additional demand for pharmaceutical services in Primary Care settings has led to a Scottish Government commitment to increase the number of pre-registration pharmacist places in Scotland over the next three years.
There is evidence that the demand for pharmacy services depends on the size and composition of the population, therefore the projected increase in the size and change in the composition of Scotland’s population is likely to increase the demand for pharmacy services.
There is evidence that the demand for pharmacy services depends on socioeconomic deprivation, therefore the demand for pharmacy services is likely to vary within and between NHS boards according to variation in socioeconomic deprivation.

3 Training market information

3.1 Introduction

Registration as a Pharmacist with the GPhC involves completing a GPhC accredited MPharm course, completing a year of pre-registration training, completing the GPhC’s registration assessment, and meeting the fitness to practise requirements for registration.

3.2 MPharm courses in Scotland

Two universities in Scotland offer GPhC accredited MPharm programmes. There are 24 accredited providers in the rest of the UK and three others have provisional approval by the GPhC.

England has three approved providers of five-year programmes, which integrates the MPharm with the pre-registration training year.

Scottish and Non-UK EU students are funded by the public sector through the SFC. The total amount of funding allocated by the SFC to support teaching in Scotland depends on the number of full-time equivalent students and the subject price. The 2019-20 SFC outcome agreement reports that the gross subject price for pharmacy for academic year 2019-20 was £9,575.

Students from the rest of the UK pay tuition fees set by each university. In academic year 2019-20, MPharm tuition fees for students from the rest of the UK were £9,000 at RGU and £9,250 at Strathclyde.

Non-EU students are not funded by the public sector. Fees for overseas students in academic year 2019-20 were £15,250 at RGU and £19,750 at Strathclyde.

There are several demand side subsidies to support students studying at universities in Scotland but, unlike students on dentistry, nursing and midwifery or Allied Health Professional programmes, there is no additional financial support for pharmacy students.

3.2.1 Applications to MPharm programmes

UCAS collects data on applications for and acceptances into all university courses. These data comprise the number of applications through the main application scheme and number of accepted places via all application routes. We report the latest available data here which relate to courses starting in 2018.

The ratio of applications to accepted places is an indicator of the demand for MPharm places relative to the supply of these places. Demand for places has decreased overall at both Scottish providers since 2012.

3.2.2 MPharm students

HESA collects an annual record for each student in training from UK universities in September each academic year. We report the latest available data here which relate to academic year 2017-18.

3.2.2.1 Four-year MPharm programme

Most students entered into year one of the programme but between 2014 and 2016 all new students at Strathclyde entered year two of a five-year integrated Masters programme. In academic year 2017 the University of Strathclyde enabled year 1 entry for some students under the Scottish Government’s Widening Access programme. These students follow the Biomedical Sciences curriculum in their first year.

Intakes decreased from 290 in 2011-12 to 250 in 2017-18.

3.2.3 Student demographics

3.2.3.1 Age

The mean age of students on entry to the four-year MPharm programme between 2005-06 and 2017-18 was 19.53 at RGU and 18.79 at Strathclyde.

3.2.3.2 Sex

The sex distribution has been similar at both providers during the sample period with females accounting for about 67.74% of first-year students on the four-year programme.

3.2.3.3 Domicile

The percentage of Scottish-domiciled students was higher overall at Strathclyde (90.24%) than at RGU (67.76%).

The percentage of students entering Strathclyde from non-EEA countries was less than 10% in each year of the sample period. Since 2013, RGU had admitted between 16% and 18% of first-year students from non-EEA countries; however, in 2017 the figure almost halved from the previous year.

3.2.3.4 SIMD Quintiles

The SIMD combines a set of indicators across domains including income, employment, health, education, skills and training, housing, geographic access and crime and is available for students who were domiciled in Scotland on application. SIMD Q1 represents students from the most deprived 20% of areas. Between academic year 2005-06 and 2017-18 7.11% of students were from the most deprived 20% of areas, while 39.01% were from the least deprived 20%.

3.2.4 Probability of completing

The probability of completing an MPharm course within four years was 0.78 at RGU and 0.85 at the University of Strathclyde. The probability of completing an MPharm course within six years was 0.91 at both Universities.

3.3 2019 Pre-registration Exit Survey

3.3.1 Introduction

To register and practise as a pharmacist in Great Britain, pharmacy graduates have to successfully complete a 12-month pre-registration training scheme and then pass a GPhC registration assessment. The PRPS was introduced in Scotland in 2006 and has three main components: a centralised recruitment process, a standardised training programme and quality management processes for premises and tutors. NES pays a training grant to the employers of the PRPS trainees, which covers trainees’ salaries at AFC band 5 and any additional employment costs. The pharmacists who successfully complete the PRPS in Scotland are therefore one source of inflow into the pharmacy workforce in Scotland.

Each year NES asks the PRPS trainees to complete an exit survey about their career plans when they are about to finish their training.

3.3.2 Results

There were 198 unique respondents to the Pre-registration Pharmacy Scheme exit survey. Where an individual submitted more than one response, we have reported the second response only.

94% of respondents qualified from a pharmacy school in Scotland.

77.3% of respondents identified themselves as British Nationals. 10.6% reported other nationalities and 12.1% did not respond.

Respondents indicated their intentions with regard to where they intended to work during the next stage of their career:

Approximately 84% of respondents indicated they intended to work in Scotland only.

Respondents also indicated intentions with regard to the sector they intended to work in:

67.2% of respondents planned to stay within the same sector and 20.2% planned to work as a locum.

Respondents who indicated that they intended to stay within the same sector were asked to rate the importance of various reasons for doing so:

The most popular reasons related to job security, close and ongoing patient contact, support networks and the opportunity to undertake an independent prescribing qualification in the future.

3.4 Post-registration training

3.4.1 Independent prescribing training

Pharmacists can register as an IP after completing a GPhC accredited course at either University of Strathclyde or Robert Gordon University. The courses typically take between 6 and 12 months to complete including academic and experiential components and requires medical supervision and sign off. NES offers funding for up to 140 places per year, with two courses at each School of Pharmacy per year. Pharmacists completing either the PGDip course at RGU or MSc course at Strathclyde may also complete the IP module as a part of these courses. The chart shows the number of funded and qualifying IPs together with the cumulative number of trained and in training patient facing IPs in each year.

NES’s Pharmacy Prescribing Report for 2019 describes the activity of pharmacist prescribers across NHS Scotland and in individual territorial Health Boards compared to the same period in 2018 and is available from NES on request.

3.5 Pharmacy technician training

Registration as a pharmacy technician in Great Britain involves completing knowledge, NC in Pharmacy Services, and competency-based, SVQ Pharmacy Services Level 3, qualifications accredited by awarding bodies such as the SQA, City & Guilds and Pearson/Edexcel. SQA shared data with NES on NC and SVQ certifications up to and including academic year 2018-19.

More candidates are registered to undertake the NC than the SVQ Pharmacy Services Level 3 because it provides access to further training in nursing or one of the allied healthcare professions. Trainee pre-registration pharmacy technicians employed in the managed sector undertake the NC on a two-year day-release basis. The majority of those undertaking the SVQ Pharmacy Services Level 3 are also from the managed sector with a small number from community, as the majority of contractors use the distance learning format delivered by alternative training providers such NPA or Buttercups.

Due to changes to the GPhC standards for initial education and training of pharmacy technicians the qualifications required to gain access onto the register can no longer be achieved consecutively, they must be undertaken concurrently. Whilst this has no impact on those employed as Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacy Technicians, it does mean that the Scottish further education providers cannot offer the course independently and will now require a commitment from employers to provide training placements.

3.5.1 Pharmacy technician training in the managed sector

Pharmacy technician trainees in the managed sector are recorded in the NHS Scotland Staff and Vacancy Survey. The number of WTE pharmacy technician trainees in the managed sector has increased each year since 2014. The number of WTE first-year trainees in 2019 was at its highest level since the survey was first undertaken in 2011.

3.6 Summary

The ratio of applications to accepted places on four-year MPharm courses in Scotland has been decreasing overall at both providers since 2012.
The number of first-year students on MPharm programmes in Scotland decreased from 290 in 2011-12 to 250 in 2017-18.
The percentage of first-year Scottish-domiciled MPharm students decreased from 93.8% in 2012 to 81.45% in 2017.
The probability of completing the programme in Scotland was 0.82 within four years and over 0.90 within six years
The latest PRPS survey found that most students (94%) qualified from a school of pharmacy in Scotland and 84% planned to remain in Scotland.
101 pharmacists qualified from an independent prescribing course in 2019 compared to 141 in 2018.
There were 64 WTE pharmacy technicians in training in the managed sector in 2019.

4 Labour Market Information

This chapter reports information on the labour market for pharmacy staff and includes information from the NHSScotland staff and vacancy survey, the 2019 Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey, and the average earnings of pharmacy staff in Scotland and the UK.

4.1 NHSScotland staff and vacancy survey

4.1.1 Staff in post

The following section presents WTE staff in post on September 30th 2019 for Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff (Pharmacy Assistants, Administration & Clerical, and Other). These figures do not include staff in training - numbers reflect trained staff only. Results are presented by region, NHS Board and sector.

There were 48 Band 5 Pre-registration Pharmacist trainees in post in 2019, a -6.30% change from the 2018 survey. Pre-registration Pharmacist Trainees are not included in the numbers of Pharmacists reported here.

The total number of WTE staff in post on September 30th 2019 was 3004.332, an 8% increase on the 2018 survey.

The WTE numbers by staff group were 1495.67 Pharmacists (a 8.5% change from 2018), 815.922 Pharmacy Technicians (a 4.8%), and 692.74 Support Staff (a 10.1% change).

Each Regional grouping is a subset of all NHS Scotland Boards:

North Region consists of NHS Shetland, NHS Orkney, NHS Western Isles, NHS Highland, NHS Grampian, and NHS Tayside
East Region consists of NHS Lothian, NHS Fife, and NHS Borders
West Region consists of NHS GG&C, NHS Forth Valley, NHS Dumfries & Galloway, NHS Ayrshire & Arran, and NHS Lanarkshire

The composition of staff in post by group and AfC remained broadly similar between 2018 and 2019. The number of WTE Pharmacists continues to increase, mainly driven by increases in AfC bands 7 and 8A.

The increase in WTE Pharmacy Technicians between 2018 and 2019 has been driven mainly by increases at AfC Band 5. Support staff at AfC band 2 have seen a third consecutive annual increase in WTE numbers.

A comparison of WTE staff numbers across survey years indicates increases in Pharmacist and Pharmacy Technician WTE in Primary Care since 2013. In the case of Pharmacists this increase does not appear to be at the expense of other sectors within the Managed Service and may be due to movement of staff from the Community Pharmacy sector. WTE numbers of Pharmacy Technicians in the Acute sector have been decreasing since 2015 but at a slower rate than the increases in the Primary Care sector.

4.2 Vacancies

The vacancy rate provides an indication of an employer’s demand for labour.

The vacancy rates in Scotland on 30th September 2019 were 8.92% for Pharmacists, 9.55% for Pharmacy Technicians and 7.95% for Support Staff. All three staff groups saw an increase in vacancy rates since 2018. The increase was largest for Pharmacy Technicians at 3.9 percentage points above the previous year.

The following tables present vacancy rates for the three staff groupings of Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff (Pharmacy Assistants, Administration & Clerical, and Other). Results are presented by region, NHS Board and sector.

Vacancy rates for all three staff groups are highest in the East and lowest in the West.

There is considerable variation in the vacancy rate between NHS boards.

N.B. Three boards had no staff in post or vacancies for Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff. The null vacancy rate in these cases is denoted by a dash (“-”).

The vacancy rate for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians is highest in the Primary Care sector. The Support Staff vacancy rate is highest in the Acute Sector.

There was variation between NHS boards in the number of WTE staff per 10,000 of the population.

4.3 Community Pharmacy

NES carried out a Community Pharmacy Workforce survey in conjunction with Community Pharmacy Scotland in 2019. Independent community pharmacies and pharmacies in the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) were asked to supply information on staff and vacancies for the week commencing 4th March 2019. The survey gathered information on staff in post and vacancies, reported as both Headcount (HC) and Full Time Equivalent (FTE). The response rate was 100%.

The reported WTE staff numbers for the main staff groups was 1412.61 Pharmacists, 906.19 Pharmacy Technicians and 3,313.62 Support Staff. These figures do not include staff in training - numbers reflect trained staff only.

There was an estimated reduction in WTE Community Pharmacist numbers since 2016 (-153, -9.8%). Pharmacy Technician WTE numbers also decreased over this period (-237, -32.4%).

Vacancy figures indicated that Community Pharmacist staff numbers had not decreased significantly since 2018. There were also fewer vacancies than in the previous year, possibly due to restructuring within the Community sector which has removed roles and therefore reduced vacancies. The issue of recruiting Pharmacists to the more remote and rural health boards was borne out in the Board-level vacancy results.

The full report is available to download from the NES website.

4.4 Additional staff in post data

In December 2018, NES contacted a number of organisations to request headcount and WTE numbers for staff in post. The aim was to identify employed staff who may not be getting picked up by the NHS Scotland staff and Vacancy survey and the Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey. The results are presented below. Headcount and WTE figures greater than 0 but lower than 5.0 are suppressed to prevent possible identification of individuals and are indicated by “< 5”.

4.5 Aseptic Dispensing Workforce

The 2019 NHS Pharmacy staff and vacancies collection was augmented with an additional collection focused on the Aseptic Dispensing workforce. The objectives of the collection were: to describe the distribution of current staff and vacancies by role, location and AfC band; to describe current demand for staff in terms of number and length of vacancies; and to estimate future demand by profiling length of service in the current workforce. A final objective was to gauge variation across NHS Boards in the use of specific roles and AfC bandings for specific aseptic dispensing tasks.

There were 197 WTE staff in post on 30th September 2019 and 16.8 WTE vacancies. Approximately half of the WTE staff in post were Pharmacy Technicians at AfC bands 4 and 5, the remainder being split approximately equally between Pharmacists (bands 6 - 8b) and Pharmacy Support staff (predominantly band 2).

WTE vacancies were distributed differently, with just over half in Pharmacy Support roles, and the remainder split equally between Pharmacist and Pharmacy Technician roles.

43% of Pharmacists (measured in headcount) reported a length of service between 10 and 20 years. This was also the most common length of service category for Pharmacy Technicians, although this group had almost 30% of staff reporting a length of service greater than 20 years. 38% of Support staff reported 1-5 years’ service but also had almost a third of staff in the 10-20 years category.

35.6% of all vacancies were in AfC band 2 Pharmacy Support Worker roles. Approximately one third of all WTE vacancies had been vacant for three months or more but these vacancies were not clustered within any one role.

4.6 Shortage Occupations

An occupation that appears on the Shortage Occupation List indicates that there is a shortage of skilled workers in the UK. Employers who wish to recruit an individual from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland to fill a vacancy that is on the shortage occupation list may issue a Tier 2 certificate of sponsorship (CoS) without the need to demonstrate that a resident labour market test (RLMT) has been carried out.

There were no pharmacy occupations on the latest shortage occupation list. However, the pharmacist and pharmacy technician workforce pipeline continues to be a major concern for all pharmacy sectors in NHSScotland. This is due primarily to the implementation of the GMS Pharmacotherapy Service, an increased demand for acute pharmacy services and a growing community pharmacy workforce demand to deliver enhanced services. In addition, challenges in workforce recruitment are also now contributing to a significantly increased pharmacy workforce risk.

The Directors of Pharmacy have therefore requested that Scottish Government make a case for both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to be included on the Shortage Occupation list at the next opportunity.

4.7 Earnings

The earnings of 1% of UK employees is published as part of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) by SOC 2010 code. Therefore, these data include employees in both the hospital and community sectors. We report the latest available data here which relates to 2018.

Since 2014, real median gross hourly pay for pharmacists has been decreasing in both Scotland and the UK; in 2018, earnings for pharmacists in Scotland were almost equal to those in the UK overall. Real median gross hourly pay for pharmacy technicians and dispensing assistants in Scotland has increased since 2016 and in 2018 was greater than in the UK overall. This may indicate particular demand for Pharmacy Technicians in Scotland.

4.8 Summary

The 2019 NHSScotland staff and vacancy survey (covering Acute, Central, Mental Health and Primary Care) showed an 8.0% increase in the number of WTE staff compared to 2018.
The number of WTE pharmacists was 1495.7 and the number of WTE pharmacist vacancies was 146.53.
Since the last Staff and Vacancy survey, WTE numbers increased for Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff. The vacancy rates for all three staff groups also increased.
There was variation between NHS Boards in the number of WTE staff per 10,000.
The 2019 Scottish Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey reported that there were an estimated 1412.61 WTE Pharmacists working in the Community Sector and 61.34 WTE Pharmacist vacancies.
There were no pharmacy occupations on the latest shortage occupation list. The Directors of Pharmacy have requested that Pharmacist and Pharmacy Technician roles be added to the list at the next opportunity.
Since 2014, median gross hourly pay of pharmacists has decreased in both Scotland and the UK. Between 2017 and 2018 the earnings of Pharmacists in Scotland increased and were almost equal to Pharmacist earnings in the UK. Earnings of pharmacy technicians in Scotland have been increasing since 2014 and in 2018 were higher than in the UK overall.

Pharmacy Workforce Report 2019

NHS Education for Scotland