How many GPs are there in the UK, and how many are private?

There are about 40,800 fully qualified GPs working in NHS general practice in England (headcount, August 2026), and roughly 49,000 to 50,000 across the UK, working from about 7,700 GP practices. Nobody officially counts private GPs. Our best estimate is 2,000 to 3,000 GPs who regularly provide privately funded care, most of them alongside NHS work, and a 2026 study found 358 private general practices in England.

How many GPs are there in the UK?

Each nation publishes its own GP workforce figures, with different definitions and dates. The latest official numbers are:

Nation	GPs	What is counted	GP practices
England	40,758 (29,223 FTE)	Fully qualified GPs, headcount, 31 August 2026	6,128 (1 September 2026)
Scotland	5,423	GP headcount, 30 September 2025	880 (1 April 2026)
Wales	1,635 FTE	Fully qualified GPs, full-time equivalent, 31 March 2026	368 (31 March 2026)
Northern Ireland	1,505	GPs excluding locums, headcount, end of 2025/26	304 (end of 2025/26)

Adding these up gives a rough UK total of 49,000 to 50,000 qualified GPs in NHS general practice and about 7,680 practices. Treat the GP total as approximate: Wales publishes full-time equivalents rather than headcount, and the nations count locums and trainees differently.

GP numbers in England

NHS England Digital’s General Practice Workforce statistics for 31 August 2026, published on 24 September 2026, show:

• 52,538 GPs including trainees (40,515 full-time equivalent), up 4.8% on a year earlier.
• 40,758 fully qualified GPs (29,223 FTE), up 4.2% in headcount and 2.9% in FTE on August 2025.
• 39,606 qualified permanent GPs, which leaves out trainees and locums.

The gap between all GPs and fully qualified GPs, about 11,800, is GPs in training. The figures leave out ad hoc locums, which NHS England Digital reports separately. Full-time equivalent is lower than headcount because many GPs work part time.

How many GP practices are there in the UK?

In England, 6,128 GP practices had registered patients on 1 September 2026, with 63.1 million patients between them, an average of about 10,300 patients per practice (NHS England Digital, Patients Registered at a GP Practice). The 2026 BJGP Open study used a different definition and counted 5,976 NHS practices in April 2024, so expect counts to vary slightly between sources.

The number of practices is falling as practices merge into larger ones:

• Scotland: 880 practices in April 2026, down 8.1% from 958 in April 2017, with an average list of about 6,900 patients (Public Health Scotland).
• Wales: 368 practices at 31 March 2026 (Welsh Government).
• Northern Ireland: 304 active practices at the end of 2025/26, 46 fewer than in 2014 (Department of Health NI).

How many private GPs are there? Why there is no official number

Nobody counts private GPs, because none of the usual data sources is set up to.

• The GMC register records whether a doctor is on the GP Register and licensed, not whether they work privately.
• NHS workforce statistics cover NHS general practice only. They count GPs working in NHS practices, including those who also work privately, but record nothing about private work.
• The CQC registers providers and locations, not individual doctors, and one private service can employ many GPs.
• Most private GPs also work in the NHS. Many do a session or two a week privately, work sessionally for a clinic or online provider, or hold practising privileges at a hospital, so they do not appear as a separate group anywhere.

The best available estimate

We estimate that roughly 2,000 to 3,000 GPs provide privately funded care in the UK on a regular basis, including those who work privately part time. A 2026 study in BJGP Open quotes this range and cites the forum as its source. For scale, that is around 4% to 6% of the roughly 50,000 qualified GPs in NHS general practice across the UK. Be clear about what it is: an informed estimate from the forum, not a measured figure, and it is not broken down by nation. We will update it if better data appears.

The number of GPs who do any private work at all, including occasional reports, medicals or sessions, is almost certainly larger.

What the data show about private practices

A 2026 BJGP Open study by Hutchinson and colleagues used CQC and NHS organisation data to map privately funded general practices in England as of April 2024. Its main findings:

Measure	Private practices	NHS practices
Number in England	358	5,976
Based in London	50.6%	18.0%
In urban areas	95.5%	84.3%
Unrated by the CQC after 12 months or more open	43.6%	2.2%

Private practices were also in more affluent areas on average, and among practices that had been rated, quality ratings were broadly comparable between the sectors. The study left out remote-only providers, so the online private GP market is not included, and it had no data on how many patients each practice sees.

The authors concluded that private general practices are more common in London and in areas that already have better access to NHS GPs, and that their growth may have widened inequalities in access to primary care.

What we know about demand

Polling for the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) gives a sense of demand for private healthcare generally. In its Going Private 2025 findings, 71% of people said they would consider using private healthcare, and 46% of people who had gone private cited difficulty getting NHS appointments as a reason. The BJGP Open study cites earlier IHPN polling that a quarter of people using private healthcare had used private general practice.

These are surveys of attitudes and use, not counts of consultations, so treat them as direction rather than precise market size.

What this means if you are considering private work

• It is a small field. Private general practice is a small part of general practice, so you will often be one of few private GPs locally, especially outside London.
• London is crowded; elsewhere is thinner. Half of private practices in England are in London. Elsewhere there may be demand with less competition, but test it locally before you commit.
• Online services are a separate market. They were outside the study, and they compete nationally rather than locally.
• Most private GPs combine it with NHS work. You do not have to choose one or the other. See working privately and in the NHS.

How to check your own area

The CQC publishes data on every regulated location in England, including registered activities, service types and ratings, as downloadable spreadsheets and through an API. Filtering for independent doctors and GP services near you, then checking their websites and prices, gives a far better picture of local competition than any national number. See choosing a location for how to use it.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The study covered England only. Independent clinics are registered with Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and RQIA in Northern Ireland, and their registers are the place to start when looking at private GP services there.

Where to go next

• The different types of private GP work
• How much a private GP earns
• Why GPs move into private practice