I know there is so much good in nursing and so much joy. I don't want to give up on that. Yet it sometimes feels impossible to hold onto.

It has now been around six months since I qualified, and I am still struggling to secure my first nursing position. During this time, I have applied for numerous Registered Nurse vacancies and have been invited to five NHS interviews. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful each time. Although I understand that competition is high, repeated rejection has been very difficult to cope with, especially after investing three years of my life into becoming a nurse.

At times, I have started to question my own abilities and wonder whether I am good enough to be a nurse. The constant applications, interviews and rejection have affected my confidence and made me feel isolated and emotionally exhausted. There have been moments when I have felt so discouraged that I have stopped wanting to apply for more positions.

What hurts the most is knowing that I have worked so hard throughout my training and gained experience across different clinical settings, yet I am finding it difficult to get someone to give me that first opportunity. I do not expect everything to be easy, but I simply want the chance to demonstrate what I can do, continue learning and develop into the nurse I worked so hard to become.

I am sharing my story because I know there may be other newly qualified nurses going through the same experience and feeling that they are alone. Being unsuccessful in getting your first job does not mean that you are not capable or that your three years of hard work were wasted.

I am still a nurse. I am still learning. And although my confidence has been affected, I hope that one day someone will give me that first opportunity and allow me to prove myself.

At the end of the day we all have the same dream, to become a nurse with care and compassion to give.

I can't get a job. I have applied for 8, not getting short listed. Had one interview saying I need more experience how much can student give, the only experience we have is placements.

The cuts back are completely crazy, yes I understand the NHS need to save money but at the sometime it needs more nurses to run well.

To support the RNs, the student nurse are there in the background. How are we to support our own families. And what is the future going to look like for the next generation?

I am lucky that I have a part time job, I am starting to feeling like the 3 year of hard work, sweats and tears are for nothing.

My mom on the otherhand, has remained unemployed since graduating Sep 2025. She’s applied for every job in our area, had multiple interviews and keeps being passed over.

It’s disgusting actually. She worked so hard to achieve her nursing degree, but has been made to feel like she’s irrelevant and not appreciated by both the university and trust that we trained with.

I feel so lost without purpose.

However, I’m now facing a completely different reality. Not only am I unable to secure a bank role through NHSP due to the current job freeze, but I’m also increasingly worried about what the job market will look like when I finally complete my degree.

After committing three years of my life to studying, working hard and investing in my future career within the NHS, it is incredibly unsettling to now be questioning whether there will even be a role waiting for me at the end of it.

The ongoing job cuts and uncertainty are causing huge anxiety for myself and many of my peers. We entered these programmes with the expectation that we were training for a career where we would be valued and needed, yet we are now left worrying about our own futures and, perhaps more importantly, the future of the NHS itself.

For years, I have dedicated so much of my life to becoming a nurse. My journey has involved lectures, assignments, examinations, clinical placements, early mornings, long shifts, challenging experiences and countless hours of hard work.

I have continued to push through the difficult moments because I have always believed that there would be a career waiting for me at the end of it.

Like many student nurses, I entered nursing with the understanding that it was a profession where employment opportunities were strong. We were often told that nursing was one of the careers where you would always be able to find a job.

Now, as I approach my final year, I find myself questioning that certainty.

I am hearing concerns from students about employment opportunities after qualification, including:

“You have to have your PIN to apply.”

“There’s a lack of jobs despite the NHS needing more nurses.”

“You aren’t guaranteed a job upon qualifying.”

For many of us, this has created a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty.

We have spent years developing our knowledge, clinical skills and professional identity. We have cared for patients and families, worked alongside multidisciplinary teams and experienced the realities of healthcare through our placements.

We are not expecting a job to simply be handed to us.

We are asking for the opportunity to put the knowledge, skills and experience we have worked so hard to develop into practice.

There is also a difficult contradiction that many students are struggling to understand:

If the NHS needs more nurses, why are future nurses becoming increasingly uncertain about whether employment opportunities will be available to them when they qualify?

As I enter my final year, I am incredibly proud of how far I have come. However, alongside that pride is uncertainty about what happens next.

I know I am not alone in asking:

Where will I work?

Will I be able to secure a Band 5 position?

Will there be opportunities available when I qualify?

What does the future of nursing employment look like for students entering the profession?

I would genuinely welcome the perspectives of registered nurses, student nurses, newly qualified nurses, educators, NHS leaders and recruiters.

What are your experiences and views on the current employment landscape for newly qualified nurses?

For those of us approaching the end of our degrees, having clarity about what lies ahead would mean a great deal.

We have worked incredibly hard to become nurses.

We simply want the opportunity to begin our careers.

All staff at all levels (though predominantly up to B7) are at an increased risk of burn out. However the worry is, if you require a prolonged period off work for sickness whether physical or mental, will you have a job to return to? Or will a review have occurred where the team managed without you therefore your role and WTE funding can be quoted as a saving?

Feeling desperately sad for the current qualifying generation of nurses who do not have jobs to go to. Not only is this disheartening for them after their long and hard efforts during their studies it’s also a financial burden as fees etc. have been paid for these years. It also does not allow for the condensation of essential knowledge at the peak of their completion of higher education which will in turn create less confident practitioners in the future if they are able to secure employment.

I think trusts need to look at their management structures, reevaluate the mountain of paperwork per patient and instead of spending money on cultural work (although necessary) focus the spending on more clinical positions mitigating the stretched ratios due to staffing gaps caused by sickness (mostly anxiety/ mental health and injuries caused by poor manual handling).

Staff from specialist areas such as children’s services are frequently redeployed to adult inpatient areas and ED’s to support with staffing gaps, yet rarely this is returned. Children’s nurses have not had any formal adult nursing training and are expected to practice in an unfamiliar environment with minimal to no support.

This staff group, understandably feel anxious about any redeployment, therefore there is an increased level of sickness when this occurs.

I feel very strongly that the current funding needs to be look at as it simply is not working as it should.

Very concerned about an increase in patient mortality and morbidity, as well as treatment errors because of unsafe staffing and high pressured situations for example stretch ratios meaning the focus is not fully on the current task.

1. Myself and my supervisor had to be moved to another ward and I was shocked and disgusted to find originally there were only 2 nurses (of which one was the nurse in charge who doesn’t usually have patients) on shift. Is this considered safe numbers? There was a 7-week-old baby amongst 8 other patients, a number of whom were high dependency.

2. A ward where it’s specifically 1:1 turned into 2:1 - this was highly unsafe due to the nature of the patients there.

This needs to stop. Every student nurse, registered nurse, medic, healthcare assistant, anyone in this field of job battles hard every single day to make a difference to these children’s lives. Myself and many others find it unfair how backs need to be broken, breaks skipped, with minimum wage for the nurses who provided that one to one care with the patients and have to go through this shortage like it’s a fun game. IT NEEDS TO STOP. I plead with you, make a change.