The timeline is published below for 2026 recruitment (posts starting in August/September 2026); applications will open in October 2025. The full guidance will be available in due course.
ST1 applicants to paediatrics are required to have no more than two years experience in paediatric posts (excluding Foundation posts), at the point they are making their application, in order to be eligible. Applicants with more than two years experience should aim to apply to ST3 in 'National Round 2'.
National recruitment timeline for 2026
For ST1 entry posts starting in August/September 2026:
| Advert appears | Wednesday 22 October 2025, by 17.00 |
| Applications open | Thursday 23 October 2025, 10.00 |
| Applications close | Thursday 20 November 2025, 16.00 |
| Shortlisting window opens | Wednesday 17 December 2025 |
| Shortlisting window closes | Monday 12 January 2026 |
| Interview invites* | Wednesday 21 January 2026 |
| Interview booking closes* | Friday 23 January 2026, 16.00 |
| Interview window | Between Tuesday 3 February to Friday 13 March 2026 |
| Initial offers released | Tuesday 24 March 2026, by 17:00 |
| Hold deadline | Thursday 2 April 2026, 13:00 |
| Upgrade deadline | Wednesday 8 April 2026, 16:00 |
| Paperwork must be submitted by | Wednesday 22 April 26 |
*Applicants who have been successfully shortlisted will also receive the 'Applicant Declaration' form along with their invite to interview. This must be completed and returned when the interview booking window closes.
The HEE Medical Specialty Recruitment website also provides general information on national recruitment, including full national timelines and pecific guidance documents.
National recruitment process for 2025
The process for 2026 will be available here in due course.
For ST1 entry posts starting in August/September 2025.
The format is the same as in 2024. It involves a shortlisting process - based on part of the application - which determines those applicants invited to interview. Interviews are held virtually.
Shortlisting
The format for shortlisting is new for 2025, adapted to include a shorter, more defined entry method for applicants, with no long "white-space" answers. In short, this means:
- All "written" answers input into the Oriel application form are limited to a maximum of 50 words per section
- Some items may be entered via drop-down boxes
- Applicants are asked to identify the best examples of skills/attributes/experience from their career against the scoring criteria
- There is be no 'Supporting statement'
- Scoring sections:
- Additional qualifications
- Transferable Clinical skills
- Transferable Clinical experience and reflection
- Quality Improvement Project/Audit
- Academic achievements
- Teaching
You can download the shortlisting scoring below.
Recruitment
Recruitment for ST1 paediatrics in 2025 is composed of two elements:
- Application form for shortlisting: to cover Past achievements, Clinical experience, Career motivation, Transferable Skills, Governance
- A virtual interview, consisting of a two-station multi-scenario format performed online via Qpercom. Each station will be 20 minutes in length and the whole process should last 45 minutes overall, to cover Communications, Career Motivation, Clinical Reasoning and Reflective Practice.
The number of eligible applicants (after longlisting) has exceeded the interview capacity available across our virtual interview centres in recent years by a good number, so application scores will be used as a shortlisting tool to determine invites to interview against overall capacity. Interview capacity in 2024 was 650, but this may be subject to change for 2025.
Appointability will then be determined using the interview scores, with a final appointability threshold of 55% or more.
Note: We can confirm that there is no plan to reintroduce the Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment (MSRA) into the paediatric recruitment process.
Guidance
Full guidance on each part of the recruitment process will be available in the ST1 Applicant Guide - all applicants are advised to read through this carefully. You should also refer to the ST1 application scoring criteria and person specification. These resources will be available to download below in due course.
Interview dates for 2026 - TBC
ST1 paediatric interviews take place virtually, managed by the local teams.
| Interview team* | Interview dates TBC |
| West Midlands | |
| Thames Valley | |
| Scotland | |
| Northern Ireland | |
| North East |
*All interviews are virtual, so location does not have any bearing on what dates you may want to go for, if you are invited. However, in order to share the administrative burden, the running of the dates is split between the five NHSE, NES and NIMDTA regional offices in the table above.
Post numbers for 2025
Post numbers for 2026 will be published here once available.
The table below shows the ST1 post numbers for all UK regions that are advertised in the 2025 recruitment round, for posts starting in August/September 2025.
| Region | Actual vacancy number |
| East Midlands | 32 |
| East of England | 30 |
| Kent, Surrey, Sussex | 26 |
| London | 107 |
| North East | 19 |
| North West | 44 |
| Northern Ireland | 18 |
| Scotland | 19 |
| South West | 26 |
| Thames Valley | 16 |
| Wales | 14 |
| Wessex | 16 |
| West Midlands | 31 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 56 |
Past application numbers and competition ratio
Some regions do prove more popular than others. However, applicants can choose any or all of the preferences for any or all regions, so it is not possible to give an accurate competition ratio by region.
Both overall application numbers, and consequently also competition ratios, saw a considerable increase for the 2024-25 national recruitment round 1 and no post were therefore put into the national round 1 re-advert round for the third year in succession.
1583 applications were made to ST1 in 2024 (up from 1231 in 2023), for a total of 479 posts. The final fill rate at ST1 was 99.79%, with 478 of those posts filled, at the end of the overall Round 1 process.
Contact
For any queries, please contact the Paediatric National Recruitment Office.