While choosing a healthcare career, it comes with a lot of confusion and an inner battle about what the right choice is, how to choose the right healthcare career, and what it should not be. As the UK healthcare sector provides a wide range of roles and NHS career information covers hundreds of career options, the problem within healthcare careers isn’t necessarily a lack of options, but it’s having too many options and no idea which career is suitable for you.
In this article, we are not only going through a list of healthcare professions but will also help you make a more informed decision.
Why choosing a healthcare career can be difficult
NHS healthcare provides a wide range of career options, so someone may be interested in healthcare but have no idea whether they would be better suited to a career in:
- direct patient care
- diagnosis
- rehabilitation
- laboratory/scientific work
- mental health
- public health
- technology/data
- management
- research
- social care
But the question while deciding a career option shouldn’t start with:
“Which healthcare job is the best?”
It should start with:
“What type of healthcare work would suit me?”
1. What type of healthcare work interests you?
This is the exact question you should think about while choosing a healthcare career option. There are several pros and cons of every healthcare career, but if you choose one just based on pros and cons rather than your interest, you may experience burnout more quickly and lose interest in your career. So, it’s important to understand what attracts you to healthcare before choosing a particular profession.
A simple possible interests checklist for you includes:
Patient-facing work
You may enjoy:
- talking to patients
- supporting people through illness
- practical care
- rehabilitation
- building relationships
- working as part of a multidisciplinary team
This could lead you towards nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, pharmacy and other patient-facing roles.
Science and diagnosis
If you are someone who enjoys:
- biology
- chemistry
- laboratory work
- investigation
- analysing results
- diagnostic technology
You may want to explore healthcare science, biomedical science, clinical science or diagnostic careers.
Technology and data
If you are interested in:
- technology
- digital systems
- data
- problem-solving
- information management
Then, you could investigate health informatics and digital healthcare roles.
Improving health at population level
If you are inclined towards:
- prevention
- health inequalities
- health promotion
- policy
- population health
Then, there’s a high chance you could explore public health.
These are the different healthcare career options you can shortlist, but it doesn’t suggest that one personality or interest automatically equals one profession. An interest gives you a direction, but it doesn’t make the career decision for you.
2. What are your strongest skills?
One of the important things that we somehow miss out on while choosing a healthcare career is that we should not restrict ourselves to academic skills. After you have assessed your interest, then comes your skills, your USP, which you already have.
The same goes for healthcare careers based on skills; they can require a combination of technical, interpersonal and transferable skills.
Here are some of the skills worth discussing:
- communication
- teamwork
- problem-solving
- organisation
- attention to detail
- empathy
- adaptability
- digital skills
- ability to learn
- working under pressure
Additionally, there are social care career opportunities where your skills are particularly useful. Skills for Care’s career guidance says that people entering adult social care don’t necessarily need qualifications or previous experience for every role; values, attitude and willingness to learn are important. It also identifies core skills including English, numeracy, digital skills, problem-solving and teamwork. Its career-starter resources also encourage people to identify their skills, values, qualities and achievements, including things they have developed outside formal education.
Moreover, it’s important to think:
“What am I good at?”
but also:
“What do I actually enjoy doing?”
Because being good at something doesn’t automatically mean you want to build your career around it. For example, you might be academically strong in science but dislike laboratory work. Or you might not consider yourself academically exceptional but could have excellent communication and interpersonal skills that are valuable in patient-facing work.
The idea is not to choose a healthcare career that matches every skill you have; instead, look for a career where your strengths are useful and where you are also willing to develop yourself further.
3. What type of personality and working environment suits you?
After understanding your interests and skills, the next thing to think about is your personality and the type of working environment that is suitable for you, as healthcare work isn’t limited to the hospital environment, and the settings in which care is delivered are changing.
Here are some of the possible environments when choosing your healthcare career:
- hospital
- community
- GP/primary care
- care home
- patient’s home
- laboratory
- office
- research setting
- digital/technology environment
Additionally, some questions you can ask yourself while choosing a healthcare career option:
- Do I prefer a busy environment?
- Do I want variety every day?
- Do I prefer structured work?
- Do I enjoy working independently?
- Do I want to work closely with a team?
- Would I enjoy working in a laboratory?
- Would community-based work appeal to me?
Moreover, there is no single personality type that is suitable for one particular healthcare career option; these questions are simply there to help you understand what type of work environment suits you and helps you excel in your career.
4. How much patient contact do you want?
This is one of the strongest differentiators between healthcare careers. Some roles involve considerable direct patient interaction, whereas others contribute to patient care indirectly.
If you are willing or like to work in a role with high patient contact, you can explore options such as nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, paramedic roles, and many mental health roles. For mixed patient and technical contact, there are options such as pharmacy, radiography and some diagnostic roles.
If you are someone who wants a healthcare career without wanting to spend all day with patients, then laboratory, research, data, informatics and administrative roles may be suitable career options for you.
This is important to think about before choosing a healthcare career, because wanting to work in healthcare doesn’t automatically mean that you have to choose a highly patient-facing profession.
5. What type of lifestyle do you want from your career?
After choosing a healthcare career, different healthcare options offer different lifestyles, such as:
- shift patterns
- nights
- weekends
- on-call work
- full-time/part-time opportunities
- location
- flexibility
NHS England currently has dedicated guidance around flexible working. It describes flexibility in terms of when, where and how people work, and links flexible working with work-life balance, wellbeing, recruitment and retention.
Questions you can ask yourself:
- Do I need predictable working hours?
- Am I comfortable working nights?
- Would weekend work be a problem?
- Do I need flexibility around family or other responsibilities?
- Do I prefer working on-site?
- Would community or hybrid work appeal to me?
Your preferred lifestyle doesn’t mean that one healthcare career is automatically better than another. It simply helps you understand which working pattern may fit your life better.
6. What values matter to you?
When you are working in a healthcare career, your values also matter, as do your personal principles. If you are someone who values treating people with dignity and respect, working well with others, a commitment to quality care, improving people’s lives, and a willingness to learn and develop, then there are several options in health and social care.
Skills for Care’s values-based recruitment framework explains that employers can assess candidates’ values, behaviours and attitudes, not just qualifications and experience. NHS Employers also describes values-based recruitment as an approach that looks at whether a person’s values and behaviours align with those of the organisation.
Questions you can ask yourself:
- What motivates me?
- Do I want a career centred around helping people?
- Do I value teamwork?
- Do I care strongly about prevention?
- Do I enjoy improving systems?
- Do I want my work to have a direct impact on individuals?
Your skills may tell you what you can do and how you can excel in your career, but your values can help you understand what type of work feels meaningful to you.
7. How much training and qualification are you prepared to undertake?
You will need to train and learn, and how much time you want to give to your career also depends on choosing your career, as different healthcare careers have very different entry requirements.
So, while thinking “how to get into healthcare in the UK”, it’s important to know and read the requirements, such as:
- required qualifications
- university degree requirements
- apprenticeships
- postgraduate routes
- placements
- professional registration
- length of training
- whether previous qualifications are accepted
Moreover, for regulated professions, the GOV.UK Regulated Professions Register is the authoritative place to check whether a profession is regulated and what qualifications or experience may be required. GOV.UK also provides a regulated qualification search, although this is mainly about recognised qualifications in England and Northern Ireland, with separate systems for Wales and Scotland.
If you are someone who trained outside the UK, don’t assume your qualification automatically allows you to practise. You need to check the relevant regulator and profession-specific requirements.
So before deciding on a healthcare career, don’t just ask whether you like the profession or not; also ask yourself whether you are prepared for the training required for this career.
8. Where do you want your healthcare career to take you?
Another thing, you should think carefully about where you see yourself in five years.
Don’t just ask:
What job can I get?
Ask:
Where can this career lead?
If your shortlisted career potential directions include:
- specialist practice
- advanced practice
- leadership
- management
- education
- research
- policy
- digital healthcare
- service improvement
The current 10 Year Health Plan is relevant because the government is explicitly planning changes around community care, digital healthcare and prevention, alongside a new workforce model.
Healthcare is changing, so when comparing careers it can be useful to consider how a profession may evolve and what opportunities it offers for developing new skills.
Additionally, your career decision should therefore not only be about your first job or how much you will earn; think about whether the profession gives you opportunities to grow, specialise or move into other areas later on.
9. What if you don’t have experience?
If you are a student, graduate, career changer, or someone moving into healthcare from another industry, you may feel that you don’t have enough experience to make a decision.
There are healthcare careers options for career changers.
Skills for Care explicitly states that previous experience or qualifications aren’t necessary for every adult social care role and highlights values, attitude and willingness to learn.
Its guidance also suggests using experiences from school, home and personal life to identify skills and achievements when preparing for applications.
Its values guidance suggests experiences such as:
- volunteering
- work experience
- community activities
- teamwork
- helping others
can help people demonstrate relevant values and behaviours.
Volunteering, work experience, shadowing or talking to someone already working in the profession can help you understand whether a career is actually right for you.
10. How do you compare your healthcare career options?
After going through all these questions, don’t immediately choose the first career that sounds interesting. Instead, shortlist 2–3 careers and compare them.
For example:
- What would I actually do?
- How much patient contact would I have?
- What qualifications would I need?
- How long would the training take?
- What working hours?
- What environment?
- What skills?
- What progression?
- Does it fit my values?
- Can I imagine doing it for several years?
You can even score each career based on the factors that matter most to you.
A career decision is a matching exercise, not a test where there is one correct answer.
You don’t need to find a career that scores 10/10 in every category.
You need to identify which factors matter most to you and then compare your shortlisted careers against those priorities while choosing a healthcare career.
Final thought
Choosing a healthcare career doesn’t have to happen in one day. You may start with an interest in one profession and realise, after researching it, that another healthcare role suits your skills, personality, lifestyle or long-term goals better.
The goal isn’t to find the “perfect” healthcare career. The goal is to find a career that fits you and gives you enough room to learn, grow and build the kind of professional life you want.
