54% of nurses leaving the profession to pursue roles in different fields

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) has published its "Exit Survey 2022 – 2024" report, an examination of why veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses choose to leave their respective registers based on the analysis of voluntary exit surveys.

The RCVS decided to start asking those voluntarily leaving the registers to complete an exit survey in order to gain a deeper understanding of why relatively small numbers of veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses were leaving the UK profession, as well as ask about their future plans and the possibility of returning to their profession at some future point.

The exit surveys for veterinary surgeons voluntarily leaving the RCVS Registers were launched in April 2022 and those for veterinary nurses were launched in September 2023, with the period in review running until 31 December 2024 for both. In the data veterinary surgeons were further subdivided into two categories – those leaving the Register altogether, and those leaving the UK-practising category of the Register to join either the overseas-practising or non-practising categories.  

Some of the key findings from the report are:

• Some 643 veterinary surgeon respondents were leaving the UK-practising category, while 306 were leaving the Register altogether.

• The most common reason given by vets for leaving the UK-practising category (40% of those respondents) is to move or remain overseas. Vets who qualified overseas (who make up around a third of registered vets) often cited being close to their families and friends when explaining their decision. UK-qualified vets tended to talk about new challenges, travel and adventure.

• The next most common reason for veterinary surgeons leaving the UK-practising category is retirement (23% of those respondents) with the majority of these retiring before the state pension age. Of those retiring before state pension age, one-third cited health and wellbeing reasons.
  
  
• Veterinary surgeons were given the opportunity to explain in greater detail their decision to leave either the UK-practising category or the Register altogether in free-text boxes at the end of the survey. Those leaving the UK-practising category were most likely to mention health and wellbeing issues, closely followed by issues in the profession such as the demands of working in clinical practice. A third of the comments left by those leaving the Register altogether mentioned issues to do with RCVS regulation, such as cost and continuing professional development (CPD).
  
  
• Some 202 veterinary nurses responded to the exit survey with the vast majority being female, under 50 years of age and white. Over one third, (34%) of respondents had been registered for between 15 and 19 years at the time of survey completion, closely followed by those who registered 5 to 9 years prior (31%).

• For veterinary nurses, the single biggest explanation for leaving the Register was to leave the profession and work in another field entirely (54%), with a further 12% planning to retire.

• In terms of reasons given for leaving the Register in the free text section, vet nurses were most likely to choose pay and stress as the top reason. Free text responses mentioned burn-out and the weight of responsibility carried by registered veterinary nurses (RVNs), but were dominated by comments about financial stress.

Vicki Bolton, RCVS research manager, said: “Thank you to all those veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses who responded to these exit surveys. This data is invaluable to us in understanding the reasons why people choose to leave the RCVS Registers.

“The reasons given don’t always make for easy reading, especially when they are to do with dissatisfaction over the direction the professions are taking, physical and mental health and wellbeing, financial pressures and concerns about regulation and its costs.

“However, it is important to remember that, overall, relatively few veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses leave the professions each year. There is no mass exodus from the professions and the numbers joining the UK Register annually well exceed those leaving, as demonstrated by consistent year-on-year increases in the number of veterinary surgeon and veterinary nurse registrants.

“That being said, these results will form an invaluable part of our ongoing work on veterinary workforce and gives the RCVS food for thought about how and where we can better support veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses to stay in the professions rather than leave prematurely.”

The full exit survey report is available to read on our website and a PDF version can also be downloaded here.