Working in the UK After MBBS: GMC, PLAB and the Real Route

Working in the UK after MBBS means getting on the GMC register. For almost every Indian graduate that route runs through the PLAB test, an English test at IELTS 7.5 overall, and a completed internship of at least 12 months. GMC fees alone come to about £1,800, roughly Rs. 2.3 lakh.

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the body that decides who may work as a doctor in the UK. The NHS employs doctors, but the GMC registers them, and no NHS job can start without registration. This piece sets out the whole route in the order you will meet it, with the rules quoted from the GMC's own pages.

What does working in the UK after MBBS actually require?

Five things, in this order. Everything else on this page is detail underneath them.

1. A medical degree the GMC finds acceptable. Your college must be listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools, and the course must meet the GMC's length and teaching conditions.

2. Evidence of your English. IELTS Academic or OET Medicine, at the scores below.

3. A pass in both parts of the PLAB test. PLAB 1 is written, PLAB 2 is practical and can only be sat in Manchester.

4. A completed internship of at least 12 months. This is where the Indian internship fits in.

5. An approved application for registration with a licence to practise. The licence is the part that lets you prescribe and treat patients.

The GMC describes the licence plainly: it is "the licence to practise which allows them to carry out certain activities such as prescribing medicines and treating patients", and it adds that doctors holding registration without a licence "should not practise medicine in the UK". That distinction is set out on the GMC's page on the licence to practise.

Is your MBBS acceptable to the GMC?

This is the first gate, and the one most families get wrong. The GMC does not publish a list of approved colleges. It states: "There is no list of acceptable qualifications and even where a qualification has been accepted for the purposes of applying for registration for one applicant, this does not mean that the qualification will be acceptable for all other applicants." Each application is assessed on its own evidence.

The conditions the GMC applies are published in its criteria for acceptable overseas qualifications:

• A World Directory entry. "The institution that awarded the qualification must have an entry in the World Directory of Medical Schools (WDMS), with contact details to allow for verification of the qualification." The contact details matter as much as the listing, because the GMC writes to the college to verify your degree.

• At least three years of study. "Your qualification must have been awarded after a programme of study over at least three years."

• At least 5,500 clock hours. The GMC counts "only hours in allopathic/clinical medicine", so hours in other systems of medicine do not count towards the total.

• Taught mostly in person. "The majority of the programme of study, including theoretical and clinical elements, must have been undertaken in-person at the institution." Online teaching is accepted only in exceptional circumstances such as a pandemic.

One correction worth making, because it circulates widely: a World Directory listing is not an approval. The Directory says so itself, stating that listing "does not denote recognition, accreditation, or endorsement". It is a reference list the GMC uses to verify that your college exists and can confirm your degree. A standard Indian MBBS from an NMC-recognised college, at 4.5 years plus internship, sits comfortably inside the three-year and 5,500-hour conditions.

What English scores does the GMC ask for?

Two tests are accepted, and the thresholds are specific. The GMC requires IELTS Academic with "a score of at least 7.0 in each testing area and an overall score of at least 7.5", achieved in the same sitting. For OET, the requirement is "at least a grade 'B' in each testing area (speaking, listening, reading and writing)", and you must take the Medicine version.

The validity window catches people out. Your certificate must still be valid on the day you sit PLAB 1, and again when your registration application is approved. If your preparation stretches over three years, one certificate will not carry you through both, and you will sit the English test twice. The rules are on the GMC pages for using your IELTS certificate and using your OET certificate.

What are PLAB 1 and PLAB 2?

PLAB stands for the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board test. It is the GMC's way of checking that a doctor trained outside the UK can work safely at the level of a UK doctor starting the second year of the Foundation Programme.

PLAB 1

The GMC describes it as "a written exam made up of 180 multiple choice questions which you must answer within three hours". It runs four times a year, with sittings in February, May, August and November, and it can be sat in India through the British Council. The Indian centres currently listed are Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi.

PLAB 2

PLAB 2 is a practical exam, described by the GMC as "made up of 16 scenarios, each lasting eight minutes". It is held only in Manchester, at the GMC's two assessment centre sites. That single fact shapes the budget for most families, because it means a trip to the UK, a visa and accommodation on top of the exam fee.

What it costs

These are the GMC's published fees from 1 April 2026, with rupee figures converted at approximately Rs. 128 to the pound, the rate used across our UK pages in September 2026.

The GMC fees to get from nothing to a full registration therefore come to about £1,800, roughly Rs. 2.3 lakh. Travel to Manchester, the visa, the English test and living costs while you are there sit on top. The GMC also offers a 50% discount on annual fees where worldwide income is under £38,500. The full table is on the GMC's fees for doctors page.

How does the Indian internship fit in?

This is the part of the route that Indian graduates ask about most, and the answer is more precise than most summaries suggest.

The GMC requires "a minimum of 12 months continuous medical practice undertaken immediately prior or immediately following graduation". Inside that year, for an internship of 12 to 18 months, it requires "at least three months practising in medicine and three months practising in surgery". For an internship of 18 months or more, the requirement rises to six months of each.

The Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship that follows an Indian MBBS is a 12-month rotating internship, so it maps onto the GMC's 12-month standard. What it does not do is pass automatically. The GMC names no country and publishes no list of approved internships. It assesses the evidence you send, which means your internship completion certificate and your rotation record have to show the medicine and surgery months clearly. If your postings were split into short blocks, the three continuous months in each may need explaining with a letter from your college.

Two kinds of experience are explicitly ruled out. The GMC states that "honorary posts are not acceptable", and that it will not accept "experience from posts that involved observation, such as clinical attachments, shadowing, observerships and clerkships". An observership arranged abroad to strengthen a CV does not count towards the 12 months. The full conditions are on the GMC page on checking whether your practical training or internship is acceptable.

Full registration or provisional registration?

The two look similar and mean very different things.

An Indian graduate who has finished the 12-month internship goes to full registration, not provisional. That matters because full registration is what opens ordinary NHS posts. The GMC does not require an international graduate to complete the UK Foundation Programme. The Foundation Programme appears in its guidance as the thing provisional registration exists for, and the thing full registration lets you move on within.

The three two-year clocks

The route has three separate two-year deadlines running at once, and missing any one of them costs money and time. They are rarely set out together, so here they are in one place.

Read together, they mean the whole route from English test to approved registration has to be planned as one sequence, not as three separate exams taken whenever convenient.

What is changing, and when

The GMC announced on 20 May 2026 that it will stop offering PLAB 1 in four overseas cities, and one of them is in India. From February 2027, PLAB 1 will no longer be offered in Chennai, alongside Dhaka, Alexandria and Accra. The GMC's stated reason is that "the bookings data indicates there is no longer sufficient demand to continue delivering exams in these locations". The same announcement says sittings outside the UK and EEA will reduce from four a year to three. Candidates in south India will need Bangalore or Hyderabad from that point. The notice is on the GMC page on changes to international exam locations.

Separately, PLAB is now aligned to the UK Medical Licensing Assessment. PLAB 1 serves as the Applied Knowledge Test and PLAB 2 as the Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment. The GMC states that "the eligibility criteria for PLAB have not changed as a result of MLA compliance", so this changes what is examined rather than who may sit it.

What you will need to have ready

Gather these before you start, because each one has a lead time of its own.

• Your MBBS degree certificate and transcript. The GMC verifies the degree with your college directly, so the contact details in the World Directory entry need to be current.

• Your internship completion certificate with the rotation record. It should show the medicine and surgery months and the dates, not just a total of 12 months.

• Your English test certificate. Booked early enough to still be valid at both checkpoints.

• Your primary registration. Your registration with a State Medical Council or the National Medical Commission, which shows you are licensed to practise in the country that awarded the degree.

• A passport valid well beyond the PLAB 2 date, since PLAB 2 requires travel to Manchester and a UK visa application.

What if the UK route does not work out

The UK route is one of several, and it is worth knowing the others before committing two years and Rs. 2.3 lakh to it. If you intend to practise in India instead, the exam you sit is the FMGE, and we have set out how that works and where NExT stands in our explainer on NExT or FMGE in 2026. If your aim is postgraduate training abroad rather than a service job, the options and costs are in our guide to PG courses after MBBS abroad. And if the question underneath all of this is what the job actually pays, our guide to UK doctor salaries and NHS pay scales has the figures by grade.

Frequently asked questions

Can I work in the UK straight after MBBS without PLAB?

Only through one of the GMC's other routes, such as sponsorship by a GMC approved sponsor or an acceptable postgraduate qualification. For a new Indian MBBS graduate with no postgraduate degree, PLAB is the normal route. The GMC lists all six routes in its full registration guidance for international medical graduates.

How much does the whole GMC process cost?

About £1,800 in GMC fees from 1 April 2026: £283 for PLAB 1, £1,036 for PLAB 2 and £481 to apply for full registration with a licence. That is roughly Rs. 2.3 lakh. Travel to Manchester, the UK visa, the English test and accommodation are extra.

Does my Indian internship count towards GMC registration?

The GMC requires at least 12 months of continuous practice, including at least three months in medicine and three months in surgery for an internship of 12 to 18 months. A completed Indian internship maps onto that, but it is assessed on the certificate and rotation record you submit rather than accepted automatically.

What IELTS score do I need for the GMC?

At least 7.0 in each of the four testing areas and at least 7.5 overall, achieved in the same sitting of IELTS Academic. The certificate is valid for two years and must still be valid on the day you sit PLAB 1 and when your registration is approved.

Where can I sit PLAB in India?

PLAB 1 is offered in India through the British Council in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi. From February 2027 the Chennai centre closes. PLAB 2 cannot be sat in India at all, because it is held only at the GMC's two assessment centres in Manchester.

How many times can I take PLAB?

PLAB 1 allows four attempts, plus an application for a fifth and final attempt. PLAB 2 is limited to four attempts. You must also pass PLAB 2 within two years of passing PLAB 1, and have your registration approved within two years of passing PLAB 2.

Is my medical college approved by the GMC?

The GMC publishes no list of approved colleges and states that acceptance for one applicant does not mean acceptance for another. It requires the awarding institution to have an entry in the World Directory of Medical Schools, and assesses each qualification case by case against its published criteria.

Do I have to do the UK Foundation Programme?

The GMC does not require it of an international graduate who already holds full registration. Provisional registration exists for those who have not completed an internship and need to do Foundation Year 1. Full registration allows Foundation Year 2 or unsupervised practice in the NHS or private practice.