The Datum Report

Occupation 2212 · Professional occupations

Specialist medical practitioners and consultants

Half of full-time specialist medical practitioners and consultants in the UK earn more than £92,847 a year, and half earn less.

Specialist medical practitioners and consultants specialise in particular areas of modern medicine, diagnose mental and physical injuries, disorders and diseases within their specialism, prescribe and give treatment, recommend preventative action, and conduct medical education and research activities

How people enter it

Entrants require a university degree from a medical school recognised by the General Medical Council followed by two years of pre-registration training as a house officer, and further postgraduate training in a chosen speciality. Some medical schools operate graduate entry schemes.

What the work involves

• examines patient, arranges for any necessary x-rays or other tests and interprets results
• diagnoses condition and prescribes and/or administers appropriate treatment/surgery
• administers medical tests and inoculations against communicable diseases
• supervises patient’s progress and advises on diet, exercise and other preventative action
• provides specialist advice to generalist medical practitioners or other specialists
• performs specialist medical tasks such as surgery, anaesthetisation and diagnostic or interventional radiology
• prepares and delivers lectures, undertakes research, and conducts and participates in clinical trials
• takes overall responsibility for, supervises and directs the implementation of care and treatment plans by other healthcare providers

Also called

Anaesthetist · Consultant (hospital service) · Homeopath (medically qualified) · Medical acupuncturist · Paediatrician · Psychiatrist · Radiologist · Surgeon

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for specialist medical practitioners and consultants, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 6 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Generalist medical practitioners