What does the pledge mean?

Labour’s manifesto committed to training “thousands more midwives”. The pledge appeared to be reaffirmed by the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in February 2025, when he referred to “recruiting thousands of new midwives”, but without giving a more precise number, and the government doesn’t appear to have committed to a specific figure.

We have assumed this pledge applies to England, as both health and higher education is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

As Labour did not set one out in its manifesto, it is hard to know what timeframe this pledge applies to, whether it means training “thousands” more midwives a year or over the course of the parliament.

We have asked the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) about this, and whether it has committed to a more specific target for the number of midwives to be trained, but we have yet to receive a response.

What progress has been made?

We are currently rating this pledge as “unclear or disputed”. We have not been told by the DHSC whether this commitment means thousands more midwives being trained annually at the end of the parliament compared to July 2024; thousands more trained over the entire parliament; or thousands more being trained, over and above the existing numbers trained, and compared to previous plans to increase that number.

According to the latest available data, which is preliminary and covers up to February 2025, there were 23,544 full-time equivalent (FTE) midwives working in NHS England in July 2024, the month the current government came into office.

By February, this had risen to 24,991, a net increase of 1,447.

NHS England has said that recent increases in the number of midwives are a result of increased uptake on midwifery courses under previous governments, as well as other factors like international recruitment.

However, the pledge is to “train” thousands more midwives, not simply to increase the number of midwives working in the NHS. (For example, some midwives working in the NHS will have trained outside of England or the UK).

Midwifery degrees typically take three years to complete, while midwifery apprenticeships typically take four years. Already-trained adult nurses can take a shorter course, typically lasting eighteen months.

The impact of any changes in midwifery training numbers under Labour on actual NHS workforce numbers therefore won’t be seen for a number of years. However we do have figures showing the number of people starting midwifery training.

The Royal College of Midwives has said the numbers starting on midwifery courses in England rose from 2,380 in 2015/16 to 3,720 in 2021/22.

Separate data from UCAS shows the number of UK-domiciled applicants accepted onto midwifery courses in England was 3,450 in 2023 and 3,405 in 2024. Similar numbers of UK students are graduating from English midwifery courses, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which told us around 3,200 people gained midwifery qualifications in 2023/24.

In the absence of any clarification from the government, since the pledge is to “train” thousands more midwives, we suggest using data on those accepted onto higher education midwifery courses in England as the best available indicator for progress on this pledge.

Separate data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council shows the number of UK-trained midwives who registered for the first time in England in the six months to 30 September 2024 was 1,069—down from 1,211 over the same period the previous year, though it’s worth noting all of these new entrants may not necessarily be newly-trained midwives.

Under the current long-term NHS Workforce Plan, produced in 2023 while the Conservatives were in government, NHS England aimed to increase training places for midwives from 3,778 in 2022 to 4,269 by 2028.

A revised NHS Workforce Plan is due to be published in the summer of 2025. It will likely set out targets and measures to train and recruit more midwives in England.

It will then take time to see how these may affect uptake on midwifery courses or programmes.

It’s also worth noting that if the government meets its pledge to train “thousands” more midwives, this doesn’t necessarily mean the number of midwives working for NHS England will increase by the same amount.

Some already-trained midwives may leave the profession, others may choose to work privately, and some trainee midwives may not finish their courses or end up registering to practise as a midwife.