By Nick Isles (Director, CPRMB)
24 June 2025
Urgent discussions are underway about what should be in the Men’s Health Strategy, a frontier and welcome initiative by Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting MP. But do we also need more in the healthcare field itself? The General Medical Council and British Medical Association issued research earlier this year describing the rise of the female doctor. For the first time, there are now more registered female doctors than male doctors in the UK. Among GP’s women are already in the clear majority with 58% representation.
Figure 1: Female and Male Doctors (UK, 1990-2025)
Source: BMA and GMC
This trend is set to continue, with women now accounting for 60% of medical students, up from a third in 1990, as Figure 2 shows.
Figure 2: Gender Share of Medical Students (UK, 1990-2025)
Source: HESA
Note that the student female share seems to have stabilised at around that 60% level, which suggests that ratio for the profession going forward unless those lines change direction.
The UK leads the G7 economies on female representation, as Figure 3 illustrates.
Figure 3: Proportion of Female Doctors in G7 Countries (2025)
Source: OECD
This is clearly welcome news on one level. We need good doctors. The gender doesn’t matter.
Or does it? As we contemplate the Men’s Health Strategy we already know that men are less good at asking for help at the right time.
Do we need to think about the gender dimension of the workforce itself in developing new policy and strategy around encouraging men to ask for help from their GP or local casualty department? Perhaps not yet. But it might be wise to address this issue now, rather than later.