Newly registered nurses (NRNs) are being forced to look for employment outside of the profession, including in coffee shops, due to a shortage of jobs for them, a conference has heard.
Discussions around the paradoxical trend of NRNs being unable to find employment took place at the 2025 Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress, being held in Liverpool this week.
“It’s a national funding crisis, and responsibility lies firmly with central government”
Alex Knight
Members overwhelmingly voted for the college’s governing council to lobby the UK Government and NHS and social care providers to develop a sustainable strategy to address the shortage of roles for newly registered nurses.
It comes as there are increasing concerns among the profession that the financial position in the NHS and social care means that nursing vacancies are being more scrutinised or frozen altogether.
A Nursing Times conference, held last year, heard how NRNs were applying for dozens of roles without success, despite there being a national shortage of thousands of nurses.
Alex Knight, an RCN student ambassador who presented the motion at RCN Congress, warned that the issue of NRN unemployment was growing “more serious by the day”.
He said: “Across the UK, final-year students are preparing to register with the NMC.
“They’ve completed, or are completing, their training, passed their placements and are ready to step into the workforce.
“And yet they cross the finish line and many are met not with open doors, but with silence. There’s simply no jobs.”
Mr Knight blamed the lack of jobs on trusts “not having the money to recruit”.
Alex Knight
“This is no longer a workforce planning issue,” he added.
“It’s a national funding crisis, and responsibility lies firmly with central government.”
During the debate, NRNs and student nurses spoke about their experiences trying to secure their first jobs.
Caitlin Beesley, a final-year children’s nursing student, said she thought “getting a job would be easy” but “could never have been so wrong”.
She said: “I’ve applied for one job, not out of choice but because that’s the only option. There’s nowhere else for me to apply.”
Ms Beesley warned that the crisis was “driving people to look at other jobs” outside of nursing.
“Everyone says ‘enjoy your last few months as a student’, but how can I do this with the uncertainty of what comes next?” she asked.
Hannah Pai
Meanwhile, Hannah Pai, who qualified as a registered nurse back in February, said she was told at the end of her course that there were only two NRN jobs available within her local trust, despite there being more than 20 graduates.
As a result, she ended up scouring the internet for vacancies until she finally secured a job hours away from home.
“It takes me two hours to get to work [and] I have to do that four days a week, twice a day,” she explained.
Similarly, Karen Lowe, a NRN from Cheshire, warned that some nurses were “working in Costa because there’s no jobs out there”.
“We need to act on this,” she stressed, adding: “We need to get this resolution through, and we need to get our newly registered [nurses] some jobs.”
It comes as the RCN’s general secretary and chief executive, Professor Nicola Ranger, urged ministers earlier this week to “give today’s final-year students guaranteed jobs”.
She suggested wiping student debt in exchange for guaranteed service in the NHS or care system.
Meanwhile, a petition launched in February this year called on the government to address the critical shortage of employment opportunities for newly qualified nurses and midwives in the NHS.
The petition, which has since amassed more than 6,800 signatures, has called for increased funding to employers to create more jobs, as well as a job guarantee programme that ensures every newly qualified nurse and midwife can be offered a position.
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