General practice workforce: as at 31 December 2025

From 30 September 2025, general practice workforce data are sourced from the Primary Care Workforce Intelligence System. This supersedes the Wales National Workforce Reporting System that had been the data source since 2020. 

As there are seasonal recruitment patterns, comparisons over time should only be made with the same reference dates in previous years. Extensive validation work has shown that Primary Care Workforce Intelligence System data are comparable with Wales National Workforce Reporting System data. 

The Primary Care Workforce Intelligence System is maintained by NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership. 

Datasets which are normally updated annually have been published with new data for 30 September 2025 on StatsWales. These relate to joiners and leavers, workforce flows, staff characteristics (including age, gender and ethnicity), Welsh language ability of staff and staff per head of population.

New data for deprivation at general practices have been published on StatsWales. This refers to patients registered to practices in April 2026 and is now based on the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025. The associated workforce data for March 2026 are not yet available and will be included in the deprivation datasets in the next publication of general practice workforce statistics. 

• On 31 December 2025, there were 1,633 full-time equivalent (FTE) fully qualified GPs providing health care from 368 general practices in Wales.
• The number of fully qualified GPs increased by 53 (3.4%) and the number of general practices decreased by 2 (0.5%) from 31 December 2024.

When broken down by specific GP types there were:

• 988 FTE GP partners, an annual decrease of 3.1%
• 498 FTE salaried GPs, an annual increase of 11.6%
• 135 FTE GP locums who worked in the quarter, an annual increase of 32.5%
• 12 FTE GP retainers, an annual decrease of 0.6%

Alongside fully qualified GPs, there were:

• 427 FTE GP registrars (trainee GPs), an annual decrease of 3.2%
• 981 FTE registered nurses, an annual decrease of 3.6%
• 951 FTE direct patient care staff (staff who are not GPs or nurses but deliver health services to patients, such as health care assistants, dispensers and pharmacists), an annual decrease of 0.5%
• 3,907 FTE administrative or other non-clinical practice staff, an annual decrease of 0.6%

If a contract is not in place between a local health board and a partner, the health board can directly manage a general practice. The health board directly employs staff and the practices are usually led by salaried GPs or GP locums.

• On 31 December 2025, there were 24 local health board managed practices, an annual increase of 5. These practices employed 113 FTE fully qualified GPs and 402 FTE wider practice staff. These staff are included in the total staff counts.

Based on the percentage of each practice’s population living in the most deprived 20% of areas in WIMD 2025, half of patients in practices in the most deprived quintile lived in the most deprived areas of Wales in April 2026 (50.5%). This percentage decreases in every quintile to nearly zero in the least deprived quintile. Since April 2025, the proportion of patients in the most deprived practice quintile has decreased slightly by 1.2 percentage points.

Data by practice quintile are published on StatsWales.

These statistics refer to the workforce of general practices operating under the General Medical Services contract within the NHS. It does not include any data from private practices. 

Further information on data collection processes and statistical quality is available in the quality report.

NHS Workforce and Primary Care Statistics
Email: stats.healthinfo@gov.wales

Media: 0300 025 8099