International recruitment of NHS staff to reduce to ‘less than 10%’

International recruitment of NHS staff will reduce to ‘less than 10%’ by 2035, according to an ‘ambition’ set out by the government.

In its 10-year health plan, published last week, the government said it will ‘reorientate the focus of NHS recruitment away from its dependency on international recruitment and towards its own communities’.

‘It is our ambition to reduce international recruitment to less than 10% by 2035,’ the blueprint said.

The plan suggested this would ‘ensure sustainability in an era of global healthcare workforce shortages’.

The move comes as the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) last month revealed that overseas nurse recruitment had fallen for the first time in six years.

The NMC found that international recruitment had dropped by nearly a third (30.2%) between April 2024 and March 2025.

While the number of UK-educated professionals joining the register had grown by 5.9% in this period, this did not offset the stark fall in international recruitment, the regulator had warned.

Building ‘long-term’ workforce stability

Emma Wescott, executive director of strategy and insight at the NMC, said England needs a strong domestic workforce to meet the healthcare needs of the country.

‘With rising patient demand, an ageing population, and increasing pressures on the NHS and social care, it is more urgent than ever to invest in a sustainable, homegrown nursing workforce,’ she said.

Ms Westcott added that internationally educated staff are ‘welcome and valued’ but warned that the ‘long-term resilience’ of the UK’s nursing workforce depends on educating and retaining more domestic nursing professionals.

‘This means positive routes to registration, support for new entrants, and a decent work-life balance to mitigate the risk of burnout,’ she added.

The 10-year plan also includes moves to create 2,000 additional nursing apprenticeships over the next three years.

It also promised to ‘reform and modernise’ the process of paying travel expenses for nursing students on clinical placements.

Overseas care workers

In May the government announced that its plans to ‘end’ the recruitment of overseas care workers.

In its Immigration White Paper the government outlined plans to ‘bring down historically high levels of net migration’.

The government has said it will close social care visas to new applications from abroad in a move to ban overseas recruitment of care workers.

The move was condemned by nursing and social care leaders who pointed to major workforce concerns and described the measure as ‘pandering and scapegoating’.

Nurses warned of the ‘incredibly miserable’ consequences of the decision at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress earlier this summer.

In February, University College and Admissions Service (UCAS) data revealed that applications to study nursing in the UK had fallen for a fourth consecutive year and are down by more than 15,000 compared to 2021.