Thousands of first-year doctors have voted for strike action over pay, giving the British Medical Association (BMA) the mandate to pursue industrial action.
According to the BMA, 97% of those who participated in the poll voted in support of strike action, primarily due to concerns about a shortage of jobs.
The BMA also revealed that, as of August 2025, 34% of resident doctors reported not having regular work or substantial employment.
According to the BBC, there were 10,000 jobs available this year for 30,000 candidates, including some doctors coming from abroad.
Addressing the poll, Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA’s resident doctors committee (RDC), said: “Doctors have spoken clearly: they won’t accept that they face a career of insecurity at a time when the demand for doctors is huge. Yet successive governments have been unable to embrace the changes both doctors and patients are crying out for.”
Elsewhere this week, hundreds of low-paid NHS hospital workers also voted in favour of strike action over pay and conditions.
According to reports, around 330 cleaners and porters at facilities from the St George’s, Epsom and St Helier hospital group will now prepare to go on strike.
It’s not the first time that the UK’s health care staff are discussing strike action, amid mounting frustration over pay and working conditions.
This week’s announcements come several months after resident doctors took part in strike action across at the end of July.
Here’s what you need to know about potential upcoming strike action.
Are NHS workers about to go on strike?
As it stands, there are currently no further junior doctors' strikes planned.
However, this week's poll results have given the BMA the mandate to pursue strike action in the future if ongoing negotiations don’t lead to results.
According to the union, the government “will now have to produce a solution on jobs as well as the 21% pay erosion resident doctors have endured since 2008 to avoid future action.”
According to Dr Fletcher: “We do not want to have to strike, but we will if we are left with no choice. The Government has the power to end both of these disputes now: it must use this opportunity to make the changes that are desperately needed.”
The GESH vote similarly has signalled the mandate for strike action among lower-paid NHS facility workers, which staff members hope wil encourage the board to reconsider equal pay and working conditions.
Strike action is currently postponed pending discussions but will resume if fair pay isn’t agreed upon.
“The lowest paid staff have been ignored for many years, and only now that hundreds of us are all ready to strike, they are finally starting to listen,” said Farrokh Hormoz, a UVW member and porter at St Helier Hospital.
“We deserve equal treatment just like any other NHS worker, and we will not stop until we get equal rights which the Trust Board has deliberately taken away from us. If we have to strike, we all are ready.”
