DENTAL CORE TRAINING – YEARS 1, 2 and 3.

National Dental Core Training Recruitment 2025 (for updated guidance on the process please access: DCT National Recruitment)

Recruitment to Dental Core Training (DCT) posts in 2026 will be through a national selection process led by NHS England working across the West Midlands. DCT posts in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be included. This recruitment and selection processes ensures standardisation in selection and values based recruitment in line with other national training programmes.

Applicants can apply to one of three DCT levels: DCT1, DCT2 or DCT3. Each level has its own Person Specification.

2 Year DCT posts:

2 Year DCT posts combine DCT1 and DCT2 into a 2 year programme or track.

This is in response to feedback from our trainees that they want more stability and certainty around where they will be for longer than 12 months at a time and to reduce the administrative burden of applying each year for their next post, thus being able to focus on training and career progression.

These posts are geographically co-located and follow a pattern that many DCTs in our region have followed in past years.
We had 12 posts starting at DCT1 in September 2024 for 24 months that run through into the linked DCT2 posts in 2025.
We have been mindful to maintain a mix of posts to allow for those who only want 12 months in DCT or who change their mind on wishing to continue into DCT2 after completing a single year at DCT1.

With flexibility of posts and a mixture of specialties involved, we think will be an attractive choice when it comes to preferencing our NHSE NW DCT post through National Recruitment.

Commitment to 2 years

We ask that if you preference a 2 year post that you are doing so in the knowledge that you are committing to this post for 2 years.

Dropping out of a 2 year post has implications for many others in not being able to have the opportunity of a training place and also for the host trust being left with a gap to be filled. Please take this into account when you make this choice. We do understand that circumstance change.

Applications and offers will be made through Oriel, the national recruitment system. This system enables the national coordination of the application and offer processes and will allow applicants to accept only one post across the UK. The application window can be seen on the national recruitment timeline below. Applications must apply via Oriel (www.oriel.nhs.uk).

Our DCT posts in NHSE in the North West continue to be popular and sought after attracting high calibre applicants and have high competition rates.

There are a wide range of opportunities from DCT1 in a variety of dental hospital specialties to DCT2 in a busy OMFS unit to DCT3 in a single dental specialty for a DCT aiming for specialty training.

We are always looking for innovative ways to offer dental core training and have a number of pilot projects to deliver 2 year posts, increase links with primary care including community services.

The precise number and location of posts can vary from year to year depending on many factors. These details of numbers, combinations and grades at which each post is offered will be managed through DCT National Recruitment and the Oriel preferencing system.

For all information on DCT National recruitment please visit: https://www.eastmidlandsdeanery.nhs.uk/recruitment/dental/dental_core_tr...