The Complete Guide To Becoming A Nurse

What are the four branches of Nursing that I can choose from?

Your first big decision to make is which field of practice in Nursing you want to pursue. Essentially, there are four fields of Nursing practice to choose from: Adult Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Children's Nursing and Learning Disability Nursing.

While some Universities offer ‘dual field’ degrees, it makes sense to focus on one area.

Many Universities that offer Nursing courses will offer all of these options – but some will only offer one or two. So when you come to deciding what and where to study, be sure to check carefully. Our Nursing degree directory, which lists all the Universities that offer Nursing degrees, is a great place to start.

How Many Nurses Work In The UK?

704,520 = Nurses in the UK registered with the NMC
321,655 = Nurses and Midwives work in the NHS
89% = Number of Nurses who identify as female

Total number of Nurses by field of practice:

567,291 = Adult Nurses
92,780 = Mental Health Nurses
55,062 = Childrens Nurses
17,179 = Learning Disability Nurses
16,953 = Nursing Associates

(Numbers of nurses are those registered with the NMC, according to figures in March 2022. Note, a nurse can be registered to more than one branch.)

How do Student Nurses fund and pay for their degree course?

Having been controversially removed in 2016, NHS bursaries were reintroduced from September 2020. However, the amount offered isn’t quite as generous as before.

All student Nurses now get a £5000 a year maintenance grant, and those working in an area suffering major shortages receive a further £3000.

Formerly, the bursary included a minimum of £10,000 in funding, with more than £5000 in further funding available depending on your financial circumstances and where you studied.

As a result, student Nurses will still need to access further funding in many cases.

Student loans are available through the Student Loans Company, and funding for things like childcare and travel expenses can be accessed through the Learning Support Fund.

It’s also very common for Nurses to register for bank healthcare assistant roles  (we have Healthcare Assistant jobs on our sister site, Healthjobs.co.uk). These positions are inevitably very relevant to your studies, and the flexibility is a big asset with an already busy schedule.

Finally, don’t forget that Nursing apprenticeships do offer an alternative route into Nursing, where available – and a route that will offer some guaranteed income.

What are the career options for a Newly Qualified Nurse?

The majority of qualified Nurses take up permanent positions within the NHS related to their field of study. But that doesn’t paint a full picture of what’s on offer in your ongoing career.

Firstly, you’ll have a huge amount of choice in terms of precisely where you might want to work. You may well work in a major hospital ward, or you might operate in an outpatient unit. You might end up in a specialist department, or a GP surgery. You could even work in a clinic, in the community, an NHS walk-in centre or a Nursing home.

Secondly, there are many rungs of the Nursing ladder to climb if you wish to. Once graduated, you can soon work towards specialising, or becoming an Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Matron or Nurse Consultant.

Qualified Nurses are vital within many other environments too. For example prisons, schools and the police service all regularly employ different kinds of Nurses, whose support alongside other healthcare professionals is essential. Even cruise ships need Nurses – so the sky really is the limit once you’ve qualified.

Working in the private sector

Then there’s the private sector. The NHS is often cited as the fifth largest employer on the planet, and that makes it inevitably your first port of call. But many Nurses choose the private sector for a variety of reasons.

Chief among them is the fact that private healthcare providers are so much smaller than the NHS. This often means less bureaucracy, lighter caseloads and ultimately a bit more time to provide dedicated, personalised care.

Private Nursing jobs are often also more flexible than NHS positions. The huge demands facing the NHS can mean that it’s hard to take holiday exactly when you want to, for example. And that tends not to be the case with private providers.

But it’s also worth noting that private Nursing jobs don’t necessarily offer a higher salary. In fact the starting salaries can sometimes be worse, because private providers aren’t subject to the same guidelines as public organisations. Pay inevitably varies more within less regulated private companies.

Working flexibly: bank and agency work

You’ll also become familiar with the terms ‘bank work’ and ‘agency work’ as soon as you enter the world of Nursing.

Essentially, a ‘bank’ is a rota of Nursing shifts and temporary workers that’s managed by an NHS trust (which could comprise a number of different hospitals or institutions in a specific geographic area). As a Nurse, being registered to a bank gives you freedom over which shifts you choose – which for many people is a huge benefit. It also allows you to easily trial working at different locations or within different specialisms. Bank work is therefore a great way of developing your career, working flexibly or earning some extra money.

Meanwhile, ‘agency’ work essentially means registering with a recruitment agency that then finds shifts that suit you. Typically, agency work offers a slightly higher salary than a full-time NHS position – although it doesn’t offer the same security or permanence. Once again, it’s a popular choice for those seeking flexibility.

How long have we been training Nurses in the UK?

Nursing as a respected, qualification-backed profession has progressed consistently since the mid-nineteenth century.

From Florence Nightingale’s pioneering work to the move to degree-only qualification, it’s been quite a journey for the UK’s Nurses and Midwives.

This timeline spells out some of the key milestones:

1860: The Nightingale Training School opens at St Thomas’ Hospital in London – one of the first institutions to teach Nursing and midwifery as a formal profession

1887: British Nurses Association created – allowing Nurses to seek professional registration

Early 1900s: More hospitals establish their own training schools – Nurses are trained in exchange for two or three years of free Nursing care

1916: Royal College of Nursing (RCN) founded

1948: NHS established – leading to a huge surge in Nursing recruitment

1972: Degree preparation of Nurses is suggested for the first time by the Briggs Committee

1983: United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting sets up a new professional register with four branches (Mental Health, Children, Learning Disability and Adult)

1986: Project 2000 sets out the shift to diploma level training based in Universities rather than hospital-based schools

2004: RCN votes for degree-only preparation

2008: Nursing officially becomes a degree-only profession

What does the future of Nursing in the UK look like?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock on Mars you’ll have seen many headlines about Nursing and the NHS over the last few years that have not been entirely positive.

The NHS is currently facing a variety of significant challenges. In a nutshell, patient demand is at an unprecedented level, largely due to our growing population – and more specifically, our ageing population. When the NHS was created in 1948, life expectancy was 13 years shorter than now.

Furthermore, as a result of our ageing population, a growing number of people are living with long-term chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease or dementia that require regular, dedicated care.

In short, more Nurses are needed across the board – and the stats support this. In September 2018, record levels of Nursing vacancies and a shortage of 43,000 registered Nurses were reported. But shortly afterwards, it was also reported that the number of new Nursing students starting courses had fallen by more than 500 compared to a year earlier.

For anyone considering a career in Nursing in the UK, these headlines might seem alarming – but in many ways, it’s all good news. For a newly qualified Nurse, opportunities are more abundant than ever. You’ll have a huge variety of options about where and how you work, and you’ll have unrivalled job security. And while there will also be pressures, there will be rewards too.

It’s widely agreed that Nursing salaries and benefits could increase in the coming years in light of how desperate the UK is for qualified Nurses. In the current climate, Nurses hold a great deal of power. So this could be the perfect time to take the leap and study Nursing.