NURSING students and graduates are facing “unacceptable barriers” to joining the workforce, with some left stacking supermarket shelves because they cannot find posts, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has warned.

The RCN said a third of Band 5 vacancies — the entry-level pay band for registered nurses — advertised in July required experience that blocked new graduates from applying, with only 26 per cent of jobs advertised in England full-time, permanent and open to applicants without professional experience.

Despite a government “graduate guarantee” launched last year promising every newly qualified nurse and midwife in England the chance to apply to join the workforce in 2025, some 2024 graduates still have not found roles, with some leaving the profession entirely or moving abroad to work.

RCN England executive director Patricia Marquis said: “Student nurses are the future of the workforce and patients need them in post.

“Services are being pummelled by record demand right now, yet the next generation is facing unacceptable barriers to joining our safety-critical profession.

“Non-existent workforce planning on a national level keeps the system in a boom-and-bust cycle of over-reliance on international recruitment, often from the Global South, followed by an inability to employ UK graduates, despite unsafe staffing levels.”

She said students feel “used” by a university system that saddles them with debt and employers who “lean on them during clinical placements but refuse to offer them work at the end of it.”

“It’s insulting to a workforce that is so essential for the safe running of the health system and risks damaging the reputation of our profession by driving away the next generation of nurses,” she said.

The RCN students’ committee has written to England’s chief nursing officer Duncan Burton.

The letter states: “Some of us have submitted upwards of 40 applications for a first post; some are relocating hundreds of miles to begin their careers; and some have given years to trusts that advertised a guaranteed job when their degrees began, only to be told that guarantee no longer holds.

“Some graduates from 2024 are still awaiting their first nursing job.

“We are seeing newly qualified nurses stacking supermarket shelves while holding a [professional recognition] PIN; some are moving abroad; and others are leaving the profession altogether, before they have even begun.”

The Department of Health and Social Care was approached for comment.