NHS nurse vacancies in London have been steadily declining across England since 2023 – with community and mental health nurses showing the biggest drop in the region.
From 2018 to 2023, vacancies in London fluctuated but remained steady in the eight to ten thousand range, with vacancies peaking at 10,073 in September 2023.
Vacancies only once reached over 11,000 before in the June and September quarters of 2022.
But, the latest figures from NHS Digital show that London has seen a total decrease of over 4,500 nurse vacancies in the January to March quarters across the last three years.
The data covers nursing vacancies in acute, community, ambulance, mental health and specialist roles.
In London, the largest decline in vacancies were in community nursing, which saw an 86% drop, and mental health nursing, dropping by 52% by the end of the March quarter between 2023 and 2026.
Alain Gough-Olaya is a community mental health nurse who has been working in the NHS in London for over three years.
After a recent move to Birmingham to continue his nursing career, he explained that burnout from his last job in Hackney was one of the reasons why.
He said: “We were completely understaffed because every other person was on long term sickness and my manager struggled to allocate case loads.
“We would end up doing two people’s work and have to take long term sickness due to burn out, it was a vicious cycle.”
This, when put with the NHS data, shows that while the NHS are recruiting less nurses, those in full time roles are already feeling overworked.
The data shows that mental health nursing has reduced by over 1,500 vacancies by 2026, down from almost 3,000 three years prior.
In comparison, community nurse vacancies in London have dropped from 437 in March 2023 to just 60 in March 2026, which is proportionally a larger percentage.
A ward manager for an NHS mental health hospital, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that vacancies are increasing due to less people taking them for a range of factors.
They said: “In my experience, it is largely job dissatisfaction, and people are rightly prioritising their own wellbeing.
“I know a lot of qualified nurses who have chosen to move to Australia because of better pay and higher focus on staff wellbeing and quality of life.
“Pressure has increased over the past three years. I think the workload of a qualified nurse is significantly higher than it has been previously.
“It is increasingly being felt that healthcare environments are not prioritising the psychological safety and wellbeing of the workforce which makes the job undesirable.”
Gough-Olaya added: “The most frustrating part about my job is when patients come in and don’t fit the exact criteria to be admitted with us.”
Speaking about an experience at his last role in Hackney, where it took so long to place a man that he had moved from the area by the time it had been decided, he said that lack of staff and resources is the reason it takes longer than it should.
He also said that patients have to fit the exact criteria to be admitted because resources are ‘precious and have to be guarded’.
The latest data may be seen in a positive light, showing less vacancies meaning more positions being filled, but the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) recently published findings from their latest Last Shift Survey, which asked nurses what their staffing levels are like and how they affect patient care.
Almost two thirds of respondents agreed that staffing levels were ‘far below’ what they should be and therefore created a ‘high risk’ of harm to patients on shift.
And 69% of respondents said that they were having to make ‘difficult decisions about prioritising care’, while only one in ten said staffing levels were at the “right level to meet patient needs”.
The NHS ward manager said that non-patient facing roles are being prioritised and it is difficult to understand why.
They added: “The teams providing direct patient care are burnt out and feeling unsafe, and the patients are not receiving the most effective care they could and should be.”
Gough-Olaya studied at Kings College London, graduating in 2023, and said that he found it easy to get his first job at that time, but since then has faced a lot of rejection.
This correlates with the NHS data, as both mental health and community nursing vacancies hit their peaks in 2023.
Mental health nursing rose to 3,030 vacancies in 2023 by the end of the second quarter (July to September), before starting its decline.
Community nursing also hit its peak around the same time, holding 437 vacancies by the end of the fourth quarter in March of 2023 before falling to below 100 this year.
Gough-Olaya said that he has had ‘quite radically different experiences’ when it comes to working in community mental health nursing.
Comparing his first team in Redbridge to his second in Hackney in 2025, he said: “Operations were seamless, patients were referred and treated and it was a well oiled effective machine.”
However, he was the first person they had hired in seven years, and many of their staff were retired but decided to stay on a part time basis.
Even when moving out of London, Gough-Olaya found that it was harder than he expected.
But total NHS vacancies across England have been declining significantly for the past few years, with the Midlands just behind the capital, losing 3,800 in the same time frame.
Gough-Olaya asaid: “I feel really bad for them. Healthcare was one of the jobs you go into for the stability.
“There is so much work that needs to be done, no one can get a job but the people that can get jobs have too much work.”
A spokesperson for NHS England London said: “The number of unfilled mental health nursing posts in London has fallen significantly in recent years – and this is good news. It reflects real progress in building and retaining our workforce, not a reduction in the overall number of nursing roles.
“In fact, the total number of mental health nursing posts in London has grown by more than 20% since 2023 – rising from 7,601 to 9,158 whole time equivalent posts by March 2026.
“Fewer vacancies mean our teams are working with fewer gaps, which is better for staff and for patients. This improvement is down to a growing workforce and better staff retention – the rate of nurses leaving has more than halved since early 2023.”
Featured image credit: Nappy on Unsplash
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