Getting a job after the intern year

Training application dates

Changeover is the second Monday of January and the second Monday of July, agreed in 2010. Next: 11 January 2027 and 12 July 2027. Many schemes recruit the previous autumn for a July start. Check each programme below; recruitment dates differ.

Where dates were unavailable at the last check, these earlier cycles provide context: RCPI BST and HST, June 2025 start opened 7 October 2024 and closed 14 November 2024; RCSI Core Surgical Training, July 2026 intake opened 14 October 2025 and closed 11 November 2025.

Standalone SHO vacancies

Hospitals recruit separately for non-scheme SHO posts. In this sample of archived July 2026 adverts, most appeared between late January and early March. Application windows lasted 2 to 20 days, with a median of 14.

These archived adverts are a sample, not a complete vacancy list. Some accepted applications for just two days, so weekly checks could miss a post.

Where to find vacancies

The Irish Medical Times and the Medical Independent classifieds — Both were checked on the day. Between them they carried a handful of consultant and GP posts, two of them in Northern Ireland, and no standalone SHO posts at all. This was a snapshot on 22 August 2026; listings change.

Where interns work a year later

NDTP follows intern cohorts through public health system records. A missing record does not identify where a doctor went or why they left that system.

Share with no record in the Irish public health system one year after internship rose from 47 per cent for the 2015 cohort to 60 per cent for the 2024 cohort. Of the 2015 to 2019 intern cohorts, between 76 and 84 per cent had started BST or GP training by 2025. Between 13 and 17 per cent left after internship and never came back.

The intake side is still growing. The HSE approved 915 intern posts for 2026, an increase of approximately 4 per cent compared to 2025, while training places are set separately by the training bodies. An increase in intern posts does not guarantee a matching increase in training places. How that number is set.

Training and non-training posts, 2021–2025

These four cohorts do not sum to the NDTP total, which is 198 higher in 2021 and 278 higher in 2025. Some grades are counted outside them.

The two reported shares use different populations and years. NDTP puts it at 40 per cent in 2025, counting publicly funded posts recorded on the HSE's DIME database. The Medical Council puts it at 53.3 per cent in 2024, counting all clinically active registered NCHDs. They are not directly comparable. The Council's own comment: "There is a significant shortage in the number of approved training posts, and career training pathways for NCHDs can be precarious for those not on a formal training scheme."

Progression from non-training posts

On average 36 per cent of new non-training scheme doctors go on to start a training programme in Ireland, so 64 per cent do not. Around 746 new non-training doctors enter each year who never do. Of those who do progress, 53 per cent do so after one year in a non-training post, a further 26 per cent after two.

Those are the doctors who never reach a scheme. NDTP's own summary: "76 per cent of NTSDs that do not start a training programme leave Ireland within 5 years."

Training intake figures

Covering general internal medicine, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology and histopathology. Applicants can rank more than one programme, so these are total applicants against total appointments.

Core Surgical Training runs 100 places a year. Subject to review year on year by RCSI and NDTP. Selection uses a published desirable standard, and the first 100 above it get offers:

The 2025 standard was lowered to appoint 100 trainees after declinations.

Why competition varies

NDTP's own finding is that on aggregate there were limited pressures in accessing further training. Year-one BST places reached 999 in 2025 against 879 filled intern posts in 2024, so places now exceed the intern cohort.

National totals do not show competition for a particular specialty or location. The applicant pool and recruitment dates also affect which posts are available to you.

Preparing your application

Reference requirements

The common denominator is two consultant referees, and in most schemes one must be from your current or most recent post. RCPI's rule is chronological, so your intern consultants are the referees whether or not they are the most relevant ones.

Application requirements

• Nothing can be added after the deadline. RCPI: if you have missed the deadline you must wait to apply the following year.
• Psychiatry deems applications ineligible if they are not verified by the deadline, so submitting early is not the same as submitting on time.
• Eligibility means explicit confirmation you can pay your fee and register on the Trainee Specialist Division, not merely that you could apply.
• Core Surgical requires the aptitude test booked and sat before you submit, and its fees are non-refundable.
• Standalone HSE posts are decided entirely on the application form supplied with that advert, not on a CV. Competency answers are capped at one A4 page in Arial 10, and the whole thing must arrive by email under 3MB.

What being on a panel means

The HSE's own words: "It is not a job offer, and it does not include full details such as job title, location, or contract type and length."

• An expression of interest can go to several people on a panel at once, with a reply deadline. Late replies are not accepted.
• Respondents are placed on a list ordered by merit, and the highest placed proceeds to clearances.
• Your position on the panel does not change whether you say yes, say no, or never reply.

A panel position does not guarantee a job. Under the process described here, declining an expression of interest does not change your panel position.

Locum work

Advertised hourly rates

Two independent agencies advertise identical bands, with no regional and no specialty variation, and the ads contradict themselves on currency. Treat this as a marketing convention rather than evidence of what anyone is paid. No intern locum posts were advertised at all.

Internal bank shifts inside a covered hospital sit clearly within the Clinical Indemnity Scheme, which names locums expressly. Whether an agency-supplied locum is covered was not confirmed at the last review: the State Claims Agency publishes an employment test and an enterprise-liability test and never addresses agency locums, while the legal employer of an agency worker is normally the agency. Get it in writing per engagement.

Common questions

What could not be verified

• RCPI's 2027 BST application dates. As of 22 August 2026 the page says only that it will open shortly. The last cycle ran 7 October to 14 November.
• A complete picture of standalone advertising. The timing evidence is a sample of archived ads from the national portal only, so the true volume is higher.
• Live careers pages for Beaumont and Children's Health Ireland. Both obvious paths 404, and the Mater blocks automated access.
• GP training applicant numbers. ICGP publishes the calendar in full but no applicant or offer counts.
• NCHD vacancy and turnover rates. NDTP publishes them for consultants but not for NCHDs.
• Whether the prohibition on trainees doing locum work still stands, since the source is a HSE statement from 2023.
• Verified locum payment rates, as opposed to advertised ones, and agency margin. Held by the agencies and by HSE Health Business Services.

The NDTP reports used here were available through medicalcareers.ie at the last check. Tell me if a date here has moved.