Foundation Trainee Pharmacist National Recruitment Scheme

What's happening now (Jan - March) Employer Registration

Employer registration for the 2026-27 foundation training year is now open. Registration closes at 23:59 on 1 March 2025
The main changes to the registration process for 2025 are:

Recruiting via Oriel is the only route for employing a foundation trainee pharmacist for the 2026-27 training year

Terms of Participation have been updated to reflect programme requirements, please read these, in full, prior to registering

There are now 4 employer types; Hospital, Community Pharmacy, GP and Other. These new employer types have been amended on last years programme information.

The documents, and link to NHS England's website, below will support employers with the registration process

National Recruitment Scheme Overview

FTY Recruitment Overview Diagram

Complaints Policy

The recruitment and selection process to foundation trainee pharmacist training places aims to have methods that are fair, transparent and free from discrimination.

We publish our recruitment and selection methods within the applicant handbook.

The processes are designed and delivered by the Pharmacy National Recruitment Office (PNRO) working in partnership with local offices of NHS England and Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW). However hard we try to respond to the wishes and aspirations of applicants accessing our recruitment services, we do recognise that, on occasion, our service may fall short of expectations. If you believe this has happened to you, you can use the complaints procedure below, which tells you how to make a complaint and how it will be handled.

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Recruitment Timeline

Activity

Month

Applicant handbook available

Mid May

Foundation Pharmacist Training Programme information available on Oriel

6 June 2025

Application window opens

4 June 2025 at 12pm

Application window closes

18 June 2025 at 12pm

Preferencing window opens

23 July 2025

Numeracy/SJT centre booking window opens

30 July 2025

Numeracy/SJT centre booking window closes

13 August 2025

Numeracy/SJT centre Start Date (Pearson VUE Test Centres)

18 September 2025

Numeracy/SJT centre End Date (Pearson VUE Test Centres)

1 October 2025

Preferencing window closes

23 October 2025

First round of offers released

Early November 2025

Offers upgrade deadline

Late November 2025

Programmes commence

July/August 2026

*Please note the date/items are subject to change/TBC