NHS Jobs Adverts in General Practice, Q1 2022-23 to Q2 2025-26 [Management Information]

Publication Frequency

We will aim to refresh the data on a quarterly basis to match the frequency with which we receive the data.

Interpreting Figures

When examining patterns and trends in workforce data we would normally advise making comparisons across a full year, rather than from one month or quarter to the next. This is because of seasonal variation in the workforce, for example when graduates and trainees enter the workforce or when fixed term contracts end.

We also advise against assessing the data to determine regional or geographical performance. Although the data are presented at NHS England region and ICB level, it is important to note that these geographies are not directly responsible for recruitment activity and should not be held to account for any findings from the data. The geographical presentation may best be used to simply understand trends within that footprint.

Data are presented by Full Time Equivalent (FTE) only. Headcount figures are not collected by NHS Jobs with job adverts advertising FTE only. Data do not represent ‘successful’ recruitment activity as we are unable to show whether appointments are made following job adverts.

As already mentioned in in the Summary section, we advise against describing these data as ‘Vacancies’. In the Secondary Care Vacancies publication, this term relates to a nationally agreed definition for the specific purpose of that publication and uses data items which are not available in the data used in this publication. Vacancy data were previously reported by the Primary Care National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS) but ceased when the service transitioned to an in-house solution and the data fields used to collect the data were withdrawn. These data items were not mandatory and were not well populated, resulting in no meaningful findings being taken from them. The data published here are not intended to replace those data.

Data represents activity within the quarterly period, unlike staff in post style workforce reporting which is often snapshot data showing a position at a specific point in time.

Respondent burden

The data are used on a secondary basis from the existing NHS Jobs platform. Users of NHS Jobs are not asked or required to use the system in such a way that facilitates this publication, nor are they asked to make retrospective changes in cases where we think there may be data quality issues.