Why I worked
I came to medicine as a graduate. That changes the finances more than most applicants realise.
In England, if you already have a degree and study medicine on a standard five-year course, you usually cannot get a tuition fee loan for the first four years. You pay those fees yourself. The Royal Medical Benevolent Fund currently lists the standard rate as £9,790 a year, and advises checking the figure with each medical school. From year five, the NHS pays the tuition fees in full, and maintenance loans remain available throughout.
So for me, work was not a choice. It was how I stayed on the course.
The four jobs
Over my degree I held four roles, often more than one at a time:
- Students' Union shifts between lectures. Short, flexible shifts that slotted into gaps in the timetable.
- Residential officer in university accommodation. Responsibility for other students where they lived, on top of my own studies.
- NHS 111. The front door of the NHS, from the other end of the phone.
- LNER. Customer-facing work on the railway, where plans change and people need calm, clear answers.
What it cost me
I will not pretend it was easy. The biggest cost was my social life. When friends were at socials, society events or simply relaxing after a long week, I was often on shift or catching up on study I had moved to make room for work.
Medicine is demanding on its own. Adding paid work means planning every week in advance, saying no more often than you would like, and accepting that some parts of student life will pass you by. If you will need to work, it is better to know that now than to discover it in your first term.
What it gave me
It also gave me a great deal, beyond paying the bills.
- Time management that actually works. When your free hours are limited, you learn quickly what study is worth doing.
- Communication with the public. Talking to worried callers, frustrated passengers and homesick students is real practice for talking to patients.
- A view of the NHS from outside the hospital. Working for NHS 111 showed me how people experience the system before they ever reach a doctor.
- Material for reflection. Real situations, handled under pressure, are far more convincing at interview than anything you can invent.
If you will need to work: practical advice
Every medical school and every timetable is different, but these principles held true for me:
- Check your medical school's guidance. Some schools set expectations for term-time working hours. Read them before you sign a contract.
- Choose flexibility over hours. Shift-based roles you can pick up and drop around your timetable are worth more than a fixed weekly pattern.
- Front-load your earning. Work as much as you can before you start and in early-year holidays. Placements and electives later in the course leave far less spare time.
- Consider healthcare-adjacent work. Bank healthcare assistant or care work pays, and it builds experience that counts.
- Protect exam periods. Agree with employers early that assessment weeks are off limits.
- Tell someone if it starts to slip. If work begins to affect your studies, speak to your personal tutor early, and ask about hardship funds and bursaries.
- Keep your records. Payslips, bank statements and funding letters are worth keeping. The RMBF suggests holding on to financial records for six years.
What this means for you as an applicant
If you are a graduate, research the funding for each course before you apply, including graduate-entry programmes, which are funded differently from standard five-year courses.
If you have worked alongside school or a previous degree, do not hide it. At interview, part-time work is genuine evidence of commitment, resilience and communication. The key is to reflect, not list: say what happened, what you did, and what you would now do differently as a future doctor.
Preparation does not have to cost money either. Vetta UCAT, the six mock MMIs and our medical school guides are complimentary, written so that cost is never the reason a strong applicant falls behind.