Dentists and dental nurse shortages – being a locum has never been more attractive

DEMAND EXCEEDS SUPPLY
Over the past 15 years I have worked in several industries as a Recruitment Consultant, before becoming a founder member at S4S Team – Dental Recruitment Specialists. During my time working in the recruitment industry I have mainly worked in the ‘White Collar Construction’ and ‘Education’ sectors. These industries do have their own struggles in attracting staff with the right experience, qualifications and skills. But within the first few weeks of working in the dental profession, I soon discovered that dentistry was a completely different proposition altogether. When it comes to skills shortages, there can’t be many other sectors where the gap between the number of vacancies, and the number suitable candidates on the job market to fill these roles, is quite as a large.
In my first week of working with dental practices, I returned from a client meeting full of excitement to have been given the task of working on several permanent roles for a small dental body corporate. Each commanding a large agency fee on successful placement of the candidates. It soon became apparent, following several more ‘successful meetings’, that practices were struggling to employ dentists and dental nurses.
According to ‘My Dentist’ CEO Tom Riall in 2018, on speaking to a national newspaper he was reported to say ‘Last year, 68% of the UK’s dental practices that tried to recruit struggled to do so, and this problem is only going to get worse unless this issue is addressed.’
Despite successfully placing a few new staff into new roles, it would seem that we have a huge shortage of staff in the dental profession and the demand way exceeds supply.