eGDCDental professionals’ working patterns data
On this page, we provide data collected from the working patterns questions that are available to complete in our online portal, eGDC.
The questions ask whether registrants are employed in the dental sector, how they are working, how many hours and in which setting and sector they are working, and where they are working.
Working patterns questions were first made available for the dentists' annual renewal in December 2023 and were developed further for the dental care professionals’ and dentists’ annual renewal in 2024.
Responding to the working patterns questions is optional. To date, 30,066 dentists (66% of the dentist register) and 43,692 (58% of the dental care professional register) have answered the questions. Analysis by dental care professional registration title, with some registrants holding more than one title, shows there is information for 64% of all dental care professional registered titles.
Data can be viewed at a national and individual country level. Additionally, dental care professional data can be viewed by all dental care professionals responding, or by each of the professional titles.
Each of the working patterns data publications are available to view below.
Dentist working patterns data
We published the first set of dentists’ working patterns data in March 2024, collected via their annual renewal in December 2023. We updated this with aggregated geographical data in May and June 2024 and carried out further data quality checks in July 2024.
The latest working patterns data tables for dentists, published in April 2025, provide a view of responses from all dentists who have completed the questions, or updated their responses, since the working patterns questions became available during their 2023 annual renewal.
The 30,066 dentists who have provided responses are a cumulative figure from the last two years, from dentists who have provided at least one set of working patterns answers. Dentists can access their data at any time to update their information. We have reported on their most recent answers to these questions. As it is a cumulative dataset (which includes all responses received since November 2023) direct comparisons between 2023 and 2024 summary tables are not advised. Inferential analysis of matched data, providing change over time information, will be released later in 2025.
Dentist working patterns data 310124 (version published July 2024)
Dentist inferential analysis report
We have conducted further analyses of our working patterns data, bringing it together with equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), registration and Fitness to Practise (FtP) data at the aggregate level to derive greater insight and value from the responses. The analysis can be viewed below.
Additional dentist inferential analysis report 051224 (version published December 2024)
Dental care professional working patterns data
As part of their annual renewal in 2024, we asked dental care professionals to provide information on how they work, where they work and the amount of time they spend delivering care each week. 43,692 dental care professionals answered the questions (58% of the register), with the results available below.
Dental care professional working patterns data 100824 (version updated April 2025)
Dental professionals’ working patterns data – Summary of key highlights and insights
The key highlights and insights from both the dental care professionals’ and dentists’ annual renewal periods in 2024 are summarised in the below document. 24,152 dentists (55% of the dentist register) and 43,692 dental care professionals (58% of the register) answered the working patterns questions. For dental care professionals, this represented 54,600 (64%) of the total number of registered titles.
Interpreting the data
The following notes will help with interpretation of the summary data tables.
Key categories reported
The data is reported by the following sub-categories:
- Clinical
- Non-clinical
- Mixed clinical/Non-clinical
- NHS
- Private
- Mix of NHS and private.
Each category is derived from a working pattern question only. It is not cross referenced with any external definition. Further detail can be found on the Definitions page in the summary table file. These categories have been self-selected by the respondents. The GDC has not recoded or validated the data.
Missing values
Respondents had the opportunity to skip questions or to select ‘Prefer not to say'.
Registrants working in dentistry
We have only included respondents who answered for question 1 'Are you currently working in the dental sector?' either 'Yes' or 'No, but seeking work in the dental sector'.
Multi-code questions
Multi-code questions can be identified by the question instruction 'Select all that apply'. The totals are calculated by the number of responses, not the number of respondents. This means that totals for these questions will be greater than the number of people who completed the question. This is indicated in the data tables.
Location data
Counts for each country are based upon the number of registrants who stated they worked in that country (not postcode data). Where multiple locations of work are selected for the question: 'As a dental professional, where do you work? (Select all that apply)' the registrant has been included in counts for all the locations – this is labelled in the data tables. Where registrants have selected ‘Prefer not to say’ for country location in UK, they have been removed from the nation breakdowns.
UK registrants working outside the UK
Starting in July 2024, respondents who indicated that they only worked outside of the UK have been filtered out from the data because their answers would not apply to UK dentistry. However, a count of the number of dental professionals who answered that they only work outside of the UK can be found on the title page of the data tables. Respondents who indicated that they work both inside the UK and outside the UK are included in the data.
In the 2023 dentist data, respondents who indicated that they only worked outside of the UK or indicated that they worked both inside and outside of the UK were included in the data tables.
Employment postcode
Full postcode data was collected from July 2024.
Previously (2023 dentist data), only postcode district level data (e.g. PO23 xxx) was collected, not full postcode data. Therefore, in the data tables for the 2023 dentist data, the count will include all postcode areas beginning with the first two letters, not just those in the administrative centre.
The postcode field can be left blank. In the data tables, this data has been aggregated to counts for postcode area for two questions, which relate to whether the respondent works in a clinical or non-clinical role, and whether the respondent provides NHS or private care. For these questions, the postcode area name is an administrative centre. Responding dental professionals who did not provide a valid postcode district or selected ‘prefer not to say’ are excluded from these counts.
How we developed the questions
We looked at existing information on collecting working patterns data including sources from the NHS, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Government Statistical Service (GSS) and the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
We combined this with questions previously developed for our research and tested with dental professionals.
In order to minimise the burden on respondents, we used fixed response options to capture factual data about working patterns. It took most respondents five minutes or less to complete the survey.