How many vets are there in the UK?

The register has grown steadily — nurse registrations followed the same pattern, rising from 23,506 to 24,952 over the same year. Every one of them trained at one of the UK’s nine veterinary schools: Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Harper & Keele, Liverpool, Nottingham, the Royal Veterinary College (London), and Surrey.

To practise legally in the UK, a vet must be registered with the RCVS — the profession’s statutory regulator, established by royal charter in 1844 and operating today under the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966. Registered vets are required to complete 35 hours of CPD per year; registered nurses, 15 hours.

Workforce pressures behind the numbers

A rising headcount doesn’t mean the workforce pressure has eased. Post-Brexit, the profession lost a steady pipeline of EU-trained vets who no longer have automatic recognition, and rural and food-animal practices have felt that shortage hardest.

The RCVS has responded with a Workforce Action Plan covering several fronts at once: the Veterinary Graduate Development Programme (VetGDP) supports new graduates and returning vets with structured, one-to-one mentoring, while a Temporary Registration scheme for Novice Official Veterinarians (TRNOVs) allows suitably qualified EU vets to work under supervision in abattoirs — protecting food safety and animal welfare while the wider workforce gap is addressed.

Market size and growth

The number of individual businesses in the sector has actually declined slightly even as revenue keeps climbing — a sign of the same practices doing more revenue per site, and of the consolidation covered below. Growth is being driven by rising pet ownership, wider pet insurance uptake, mandatory cat microchipping, and tightening food-safety regulation that keeps demand steady on the farm side too.

The consolidation story

This is the statistic that gets the most attention, and for good reason: corporate ownership of UK veterinary practices rose from roughly 10% in 2013 to nearly 60% by 2023, driven by private-equity-backed roll-ups from a handful of large groups sometimes referred to as the “Big 6,” including CVS Group, IVC Evidensia, and Pets at Home’s VetPartners.

That pace of consolidation drew formal scrutiny. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a full market investigation into the sector, and its final report — published in March 2026 — concluded that the market isn’t working well for consumers, pointing to weak price transparency and limited local competition in many areas.

Pet ownership driving demand

Those figures come from the PDSA’s 2025 Animal Wellbeing survey, run annually with YouGov. Roughly half of UK adults own a pet of some kind; measured at household level instead — the methodology industry body UK Pet Food (PFMA) uses — that works out closer to 60% of UK households owning at least one pet. Both are credible, they’re just counting slightly different things.

Farm and food-producing animal trends

The companion animal side of the profession gets most of the headlines, but the picture on farms is shifting in its own direction. Falling cattle and sheep numbers have reduced some routine large-animal work, while a growing poultry sector is creating new demand elsewhere in food-animal medicine.

Combined with the rural workforce shortage covered above, that leaves large-animal and mixed practices doing more with fewer available clinicians per farm visit — one of the reasons practical, time-saving tools matter more in this corner of the profession than almost anywhere else in veterinary care.

Sources

• Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) — 2024 Facts and Figures report
• RCVS — veterinary school listings and registration guidance
• IBISWorld — Veterinary Services in the UK, industry analysis 2026
• Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) — veterinary services market investigation, final report, March 2026
• PDSA — Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Mini Report 2025, in partnership with YouGov
• UK Pet Food (PFMA) — UK Pet Population Report

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