No fewer than 4,691 doctors have relocated from Nigeria to the United Kingdom since President Bola Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023, fresh data from the United Kingdom General Medical Council has shown.
The UK GMC is a public official register detailing the number of practising doctors in the UK alongside other details such as their areas of speciality and country of training.
The mass migration represents not just a human resource crisis but a significant economic loss. With the Federal Government estimating that it costs about $21,000 to train a single doctor, Nigeria has effectively lost at least $98.5 million in training investments within less than two years.
The figure puts the total number of Nigeria-trained doctors currently practising in the UK at about 15,692, making Nigeria one of the largest sources of foreign-trained doctors in Britain, second only to India.
As of May 28, 2025, official records showed that the number of Nigerian-trained doctors in the UK was a little over 11,000. The figure has grown significantly since then.
The exodus of doctors comes as Nigeria’s doctor-to-population ratio hovers around 3.9 per 10,000 people, far below the minimum threshold recommended by the World Health Organisation.
The Nigerian Medical Association has repeatedly warned that poor remuneration, unsafe working conditions, and inadequate infrastructure are pushing doctors out of the country. “Our members are overworked, underpaid and exposed to unsafe environments daily. Many are simply burnt out,” the NMA said in one of its recent statements.
Similarly, the National Association of Resident Doctors has consistently highlighted the toll on younger doctors. “Doctors are leaving because the system is failing them—irregular salaries, excessive workload, and lack of training opportunities,” NARD noted.
A public health expert, Dr David Adewole, noted that many push factors for health professionals emigrating to greener pastures, including insecurity, poor emolument, and lack of basic amenities like potable water, constant electricity, and affordable housing, persist. He said salaries need to be sufficient to meet basic needs and that retirement packages must be processed promptly without bureaucratic hurdles.
