Internal Medicine Training Application 2027 Overview

Round 1 key dates for 2027

These are the national Round 1 dates published by NHS England and apply to CT1/ST1 entry across specialties. They are confirmed for 2027.

• Applications open — 22 October 2026, 10:00
• Applications close — 19 November 2026, 16:00
• Interview window — 11 January to 2 April 2027
• Initial offers — 6 April 2027, 17:00
• Deadline to hold an offer — 9 April 2027, 09:00
• Upgrade deadline — 14 April 2027, 16:00
• Hierarchical offer deadline — 15 April 2027, 16:00

Interviews are held regionally by the deanery you apply to, and each region uses different dates within that window. Register with Oriel before applications open — the account, not the application, is what takes time.

What changed for 2027

Self-assessment is worth less, and only for shortlisting

The self-assessment maximum drops from 35 to 30, and four specific changes are confirmed for the 2027 round.

• The five IMT-only shortlisting points are removed
• Publications maximum drops from 8 to 6
• Presentations and posters maximum rises from 6 to 8
• Abstracts and letters can no longer be claimed under PubMed-cited other publication

Read the direction of travel: evidence you present and discuss is worth more, and evidence you merely list is worth less. If you are choosing what to chase in the months before applications open, choose the presentation over the letter.

Prioritisation now applies at shortlisting

The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act 2026 applied at offer only in 2026. For 2027 it applies at shortlisting as well, so it now decides who is interviewed at all. The 2027 criteria are not yet set — NHS England said in August 2026 that regulations were still being agreed across the four nations and that the 2026 immigration-status proxy will not apply automatically. Expect them before applications open.

The evidence section

Section 7 of the Oriel form is the scored one. You select an option from a drop-down against each domain, higher options score more, and every claim is verified against your evidence at interview. Where you have several achievements in one domain, claim the highest-scoring one.

• Postgraduate degrees and qualifications
• Additional achievements — prizes, bursaries and scholarships
• Presentations and posters
• Publications
• Teaching experience
• Quality improvement and clinical audit
• Leadership and management

Three exclusions cost people points every year: intercalated degrees cannot be scored in any section, teaching qualifications belong in the teaching domain rather than the postgraduate one, and MRCP(UK) is not claimed here at all.

Have the evidence before you claim the point. A certificate, or a letter from the awarding body or organiser, is what an interviewer will ask to see — and an unverifiable claim is worse than a claim not made.

How competitive is it

In the 2025 round there were 8,841 applications for 1,677 posts — a ratio of 5.27 to one. Treat it as the scale of the field rather than a prediction: the ratio moves year to year, and prioritisation applying at shortlisting makes 2027 harder to compare with what came before.

Top Tips

• Register with Oriel before applications open — the account setup, not the form, is what catches people short.
• Check the person specification wording against your own record early: eligibility is assessed on competencies attained by a set deadline, not by the interview.
• Claim only what you can evidence. Every entry is verified at interview.
• Do not spend the autumn optimising a self-assessment score that only shortlists you. Once you are through, the interview alone decides your rank.