How does the veterinary employment package compare to that of NHS doctors? The training required is of course very similar, and while medical doctors of course treat humans rather than other mammals, the technical aspects of the job are essentially identical (assess, diagnose, and treat a patient who may or may not be verbal). Indeed, increasingly the standard of care available to veterinary teams is very similar to that available on the NHS. So how do the salaries (and the wider employment benefits) stack up? 

Comparisons between the employment conditions of veterinary surgeons and medical doctors in the UK are often difficult to make cleanly. Both professions require similar extensive training, both carry significant clinical responsibility, and both operate within demanding, high-stakes environments. These differences mainly come from the fact that vets usually work in private practices, where pay and benefits can vary widely, while NHS doctors are employed under a single national contract that sets out their pay, working conditions and career path. 

This article offers an overview comparing key components of the “average” veterinary package with the NHS junior doctor contract, covering working hours, training, responsibilities, pay, benefits, pensions, on-call demands, and long-term earning potential. 

Pay: Early career and beyond 

Early-career earnings for vets and junior doctors can appear broadly similar. According to the SPVS Salary Survey, “For all vets working full time, the median annual salary PACKAGE (including all benefits)… [is now] £58,277.” To put this in context, the median Foundation Year 2 doctor in 2025/26 package is £54,400. That means that a fairly well paid NHS F2 is probably earning about the same as the average vet across all stages of professional and career development, including those with many times more experience and responsibility. 

NHS Foundation Year doctors earn a nationally set salary, with automatic progression and structured uplifts as they enter specialty training. Additional payments such as those for night duty, weekend work and on-call availability can significantly increase take-home pay. As a result, the Nuffield Trust estimates the 24/25 average annual salary package (NHS work only) of a newly qualified Foundation doctor as £43,400.  

For vets, advertised starting salaries vary markedly by location, employer, species focus and rota pattern. Some graduate roles begin in the mid-£30,000s, particularly in rural practices, while urban small-animal practices now offer packages in the £35,000–£45,000 range for new graduates, rising with experience. Locum vets and those working in emergency or night services may earn substantially more on a shift or hourly basis, but these arrangements often lack the employment protections and benefits of salaried roles.  

Long-term salary trajectories diverge more clearly. Doctors typically experience significant salary progression, with senior registrars, consultants and salaried GPs earning substantially more than early-career colleagues. Private practice, additional shifts, and the ability to work locum shifts further expand earning potential. The Nuffield Trust gives average package values within each band for 2024/25, including £76,700 for a speciality Registrar; £155,400 for a Consultant; and approximately £100,000 for a salaried GP. However, because of the banded nature of NHS pay, there is no generally accepted median package award available for all doctors, even within the NHS.  

Veterinary salaries also rise with experience, specialisation and managerial responsibility, and high-earning locum or emergency roles exist. However, these opportunities are less structured, more market-dependent, and do not guarantee the same long-term financial growth observed in medicine, and in fact pay increase has been slowing markedly in the veterinary sector, even as it rises in the NHS. 

Training and early-career responsibilities 

Veterinary surgeons typically enter the workforce immediately after completing a five- or six-year degree programme and registering professionally. Regardless of practice size, many new graduates carry substantial responsibility early on: diagnosing, treating, prescribing and, in many practices, performing surgery from day one. Although structured early-career support exists, such as VetGDP (the veterinary graduate development programme), the level of autonomous clinical decision-making expected of new vets is significant. 

Doctors follow a slightly longer, more structured training pathway. After medical school, newly qualified doctors complete two Foundation Years before entering specialty training. While early-career doctors still bear responsibility for patient care, their work is embedded within multi-disciplinary teams, and graded supervision is mandated. Responsibility therefore builds more gradually, with support structures that shape both working hours and workload intensity. 

While the reality on the ground may vary, in legal terms the newly qualified veterinary surgeon carries more autonomous clinical responsibility. 

Working hours and on-call commitments 

Veterinary working hours vary considerably across the sector. Advertised roles often cite 40-hour weeks, but patterns differ between small-animal, mixed, farm, equine and emergency practice.  A survey published in the Veterinary Record (2018) estimated that the average full-time vet in the UK works 57 hours a week, as a combination of professional ethics and standard contractual clauses effectively requires that a vet must not abandon an animal but must ensure a safe and proper transfer of care before their shift ends. Many vets participate in weekend working or out-of-hours rotas, though increasing numbers of corporate and independent practices now outsource emergency cover or offer roles with no on-call expectations. Entirely “office-hours-only” veterinary roles, such as government vet positions, also exist, though these represent a minority of the profession. 

By contrast, an NHS junior doctor’s standard contract is explicitly built around a 40-hour work week, with structured rostering and close monitoring under working-time regulations. Nights, weekends, and bank holidays are routine parts of the rota and attract contractual enhancements. Actual weekly hours often exceed the 40-hour baseline due to shift patterns and on-call duties. While a LOT of vets do substantial amounts of antisocial work hours, the amount of specific veterinary “out-of-hours” work depends heavily on practice type, and specific practice policies and working patterns. Meanwhile, NHS trainees can generally expect sustained exposure to unsocial hours. 

What the job involves: Human vs Animal care 

Veterinary clinical work spans a broad case load: consultations, surgery, diagnostic imaging, emergency care, herd health planning, public-health duties and more. A key distinction is that vets make decisions for non-verbal patients represented by owners who are not medically trained, placing responsibility for communication, consent and clinical judgment squarely on the vet. In many practices, the vet is the primary and often the sole clinical decision-maker, especially out of hours. 

Medical doctors, by comparison, deliver care to human patients within systems that generally include nurses, allied professionals, senior clinicians and multidisciplinary oversight. This shared environment provides both support and governance structures not always mirrored in veterinary practice. The clinical and ethical responsibilities differ in nature rather than magnitude, but the organisational frameworks surrounding them are more standardised in medicine than in veterinary work. 

Pension provision 

Pension provision is one of the most marked differences. NHS doctors benefit from membership in a large, defined-benefit pension scheme that provides predictable long-term security. Contributions are made by both doctor and employer at nationally mandated rates, and the scheme is considered one of the strongest occupational pensions in the UK public sector. The employee contributes 5.2-12.5% of their salary, and the employer contributes 23.7%. 

Veterinary pensions vary widely. Some practices (especially but not exclusively corporate) may offer employer contributions of 3–8%, while smaller independent practices may provide minimal pension support beyond statutory requirements. Locum vets, as self-employed workers, must organise and fund their own pension arrangements entirely. 

However, the difference in contribution levels may obscure the difference in the pensions. While (like almost all private-sector workers) private veterinary pensions are Defined Contribution (i.e. what you get back depends on what you pay in, assuming your investments don’t collapse), the NHS pension scheme is Defined Benefit, meaning that the amount paid out is guaranteed by the government. In fact, some economic commentators have argued that the nominal 23.7% contribution is in fact an underestimate, as these pension liabilities are paid for either by general taxation or government borrowing. 

In either case, the NHS pension is dramatically more generous than vets in private (or even most referral) practice are able to access. 

Maternity, paternity and family-friendly policies 

Family-friendly benefits for NHS doctors follow national standards, with paid maternity leave, paid paternity leave, shared parental leave options and defined occupational entitlements. These are consistent across employers. 

In contrast, veterinary provisions depend entirely on individual practices. Some employers now offer enhanced maternity and paternity packages, but there is no universal standard, and it appears unusual for most practices to offer more than statutory entitlements, and for locum vets, such benefits may be absent altogether. 

Sick pay 

Sick pay for NHS doctors is also nationally defined and increases with years of service. Within a few years of continuous NHS employment, occupational sick pay can amount to several months of full pay followed by several months of half pay. 

Veterinary sick pay is not standardised. Some employers offer generous protections, but others provide only statutory minimums. Locum vets again fall outside the employment framework and do not receive paid sick leave unless privately arranged. 

Continuing Professional Development and training support 

Both professions are subject to mandatory CPD and training requirements – a minimum of 35 hours of reflected CPD per year for vets, and 250 credit hours of CPD over five years (so 50 per year on average) for medical doctors.  

Veterinary employers commonly advertise explicit continued professional development (CPD) allowances, often including several days of paid CPD leave and a budget for courses, conferences or certificate study. In addition, there is a very wide range of free CPD opportunities, with the quality being assessed by reflections uploaded to a central RCVS CPD database. Many practices also cover professional membership fees of relevant representational, learned or educational associations as well. 

For doctors, CPD requirements are embedded within postgraduate training programmes, and training posts include protected teaching time and structured competency frameworks. After completing training, CPD support varies between NHS trusts. Most doctors have access to study leave, but the funding available for external courses is inconsistent. Many resident doctors are required to pay for the examinations needed to progress in their career (although it should be noted that the government has now made an offer to change this system, and not before time). 

While this is similar to the veterinary sector, the cost of medical college examinations is higher than most veterinary qualifications, and in addition, career advancement in this way is considered more important in the medical field. For medical doctors, “staff grade” (i.e. non-training) jobs are often seen as a poor second choice compared to the Foundation/Specialist/Consultant or GP route, while progression to Advanced Practitioner or Specialist status is a relatively minority choice among veterinary surgeons. 

Indemnity insurance 

Both professions have a mandatory requirement to have clinical indemnity insurance or “equivalent arrangements” in place as a precondition to practicing.  

Veterinary practices frequently cover indemnity or professional liability fees for their staff, either through collective schemes or individual subscriptions. The majority of veterinary practices have a practice subscription to a professional indemnity provider (such as the VDS) which provides insurance for clinical negligence, defending claims, and RCVS professional misconduct or disciplinary hearings. Insurance is usually available pro-rata for locum or part time staff, and factors in the risk profile of the clinical practice, although due to mutualisation, VDS members in particular can “share” the risk across the membership, often resulting in lower premiums.  

NHS doctors are covered for NHS work through employer-provided indemnity, although this only covers clinical negligence. Representation at GMC disciplinary or misconduct hearings or coroners court appearances, for example, is not usually included. In addition, those undertaking private work or additional professional roles must arrange and pay for their own indemnity cover, which can become a significant expense depending on specialty and scope of practice. 

Job structure, variation and predictability 

One of the largest structural differences between the professions lies in predictability. The NHS contract provides doctors with nationally standardised pay scales, pension provisions, leave entitlements, regulated working hours and defined routes for career progression. 

Veterinary employment, by contrast, is extremely heterogeneous. Salaries, benefits, work patterns, training support and career trajectories vary widely not just between organisations but even between branches of the same company. This variability can create opportunities, especially for experienced vets or locums, but also exposes the profession to inconsistencies not seen in the NHS. 

Resident doctors in the NHS can apply for roles, but the NHS allocates them a position, which has been a major concern for doctors recently. In contrast, vets must apply for jobs at a range of employers, giving them simultaneously more control (they can choose which practices to apply for) and less (there are no guarantees that any employer will want them).  

However, the major difference is that right now there are more veterinary vacancies than applicants, whereas in the NHS, there are currently fewer training posts than doctors applying for them due to increased student numbers qualifying. 

Conclusion 

Although both veterinary surgeons and NHS doctors are highly trained clinical professionals performing demanding roles, their employment packages differ in crucial ways. Early-career pay can appear broadly comparable, but doctors benefit from far more structured long-term earning potential, substantial pension guarantees, and nationally standardised benefits covering parental leave, sick pay and working hours. Veterinarians may enjoy greater autonomy earlier in their careers, and many roles offer competitive salaries and CPD support, but their benefits depend heavily on individual employers, and long-term financial security is more variable. 

The contrast mainly exists because vets work in a mostly private sector, whereas the NHS is a single, nationwide organisation. Understanding this helps make sense of the pressures each profession faces, and it allows us to discuss their needs fairly, without comparing one as better or worse.