Nursing Careers UK

Nursing careers

UK nursing careers

5 professions, 14 approved pre-registration courses and 11 universities — ranked here by how much approved provision each profession actually has, so you can see at a glance which are wide doors and which have a handful of places a year.

5 Professions covered Each with its own hub
14 Approved courses Pre-registration, all UK nations
11 Universities With at least one approved course
£32,073 Band 5 starting salary England, 2026/27, before high cost area supplements

What the five fields and roles on this site have in common

Adult, mental health, children's and learning disability nursing are the four fields of pre-registration nursing practice on the NMC register, each leading to its own registered nurse qualification. Alongside them sits the nursing associate role — a distinct part of the register that bridges healthcare support work and registered nursing, and a route into one of the four fields for people already working in care. This site treats all five as one set of career choices, because a prospective applicant is usually weighing them against each other, not against roles outside nursing.

What they have in common matters as much as what separates them. All five are regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which means the job title is protected in law and you cannot use it until you are on the register. Registration comes from completing a programme the NMC has approved — not from any degree in a related subject — which is why the course lists on this site are the practical starting point rather than a prospectus. And all five are employed on the same NHS pay structure, Agenda for Change, which is why a newly qualified adult nurse and a newly qualified mental health nurse are paid the same amount on their first day.

The differences worth weighing up are how many approved courses exist, how many places those courses have, which routes each field actually offers, and what the work looks like day to day. The table below covers the first three. Each hub covers the fourth, alongside the funding you can claim and what the pay ladder looks like once you are qualified.

Every profession, by how much provision exists

Ordered by the number of approved pre-registration courses. A profession with a large course count is not an easier one to get into — it is a bigger one, with more places and more universities running it.

BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become an adult nurse

Adults of all ages with acute and long-term conditions, and their families, across hospital, outpatient, home and community settings.

3 courses3 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a children's nurse

Babies, children and young people from birth to adolescence, and their parents or guardians.

3 courses3 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a learning disability nurse

People with learning disabilities and their families, across the lifespan and across health, social care and education settings.

3 courses3 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a mental health nurse

People experiencing a wide range of mental health conditions, across inpatient, specialist and community settings.

3 courses3 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
ApprenticeshipDiploma

Become a nursing associate

Patients across all four nursing fields, working alongside healthcare support workers and registered nurses.

2 courses2 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 4

Side by side

Course and university counts are of approved pre-registration programmes currently listed by the regulator. Blank cells mean the field is not published, not zero.

Approved provision by profession
Profession Courses Universities Nations Routes in
Adult Nurse 3 3 1 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship
Children's Nurse 3 3 2 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship
Learning Disability Nurse 3 3 1 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship
Mental Health Nurse 3 3 3 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship
Nursing Associate 2 2 1 Apprenticeship, Diploma

Choosing between them

Most people arrive at this decision from one of two directions. Either you know the setting you want — an emergency department, a school, a community team, a diagnostic imaging suite — and you are working out which profession puts you there, or you know the kind of contact you want with people and you are working backwards from that. Both are better guides than salary, because every one of these professions is paid on the same national scale and climbs the same bands — the profession you choose changes the work far more than it changes the money.

The variables that genuinely differ are competition for places, how far you will have to travel for placements, whether a pre-registration master's exists if you already have a degree, and whether an employer near you sponsors apprentices. All four are on the profession hubs, and none of them is visible on a university prospectus.

If you are still deciding, read two or three hubs side by side before you look at any single course. The course you pick matters much less than the profession you pick.

5 Professions with an apprenticeship
England, Scotland and Northern Ireland Nations with approved courses
£56,515 Top of band 7 England, 2026/27

Compare across professions

Where this page’s data comes from

Counts on this page are derived from the approved-programme records held by the regulators. Nursing Careers UK publishes no figure it cannot attribute.