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Eligibility
Dental Core Training (DCT) recruitment
Before beginning your application, it is important for you to determine whether you are eligible to apply for Dental Core Training (DCT).
The first year of Dental Core Training (DCT1) is open to any dentist with at least 12 months whole time equivalent (WTE) postgraduate clinical experience to the full scope of a dentist by the start date of the post.
DCT2 applicants must have evidence of completion of a UK Dental Core Training Year 1 programme (satisfactory Review of Competence Progression (RCP) outcome 1) or equivalent by the start date of the post.
DCT3 applicants must have evidence of completion of a UK Dental Core Training Year 2 programme or equivalent by the start date of the post.
Person specifications
Full details of the DCT1, DCT2 and DCT3 entry and selection criteria can be found on the relevant person specification.
All applications will be assessed against the person specifications' essential criteria.
If you are found to have not met all the required eligibility criteria, you will be rejected from the recruitment process.
Academic person specifications
If you're applying to an Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF), you'll need to meet the criteria in both the clinical and ACF person specifications.
If you only wish to be considered for an Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF) post
If you only wish to be considered for an ACF post you should select Academic Clinical Fellowship appointments only on your application form.
When invited to preference posts on Oriel, you do not need to complete this. However, the preferences will still appear on your Oriel account.
Your application will be withdrawn once the results of the DCT selection process are confirmed and passed to the region(s) of your ACF application(s). You will not be eligible to be considered for clinical training programmes offered through the DCT vacancy.
You must have demonstrable skills in written and spoken English, adequate to enable effective communication about medical topics with patients and colleagues, as assessed by the General Dental Council (GDC).
When you complete the Language Skills section on the application form, it may incorrectly state that you will be required to provide evidence at interview. This is not the case. Confirmation that you are registered with or will be eligible to be registered with the GDC (full or temporary) by the time of post commencement will be sufficient.
Evidence of communication skills for dental lists
For some posts, the person specification requires that you are eligible for entry onto the Dental Performers List for England, NI Dental List (Northern Ireland), NHS Scotland Health Boards Dental List or Dental Performers List in Wales.
Therefore, you must also ensure your evidence of communication skills complies with the standard operating procedure (SOP) or guidance issued by the relevant primary care organisation (PCO) responsible for maintaining the dental lists in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales.
The UK's PCOs are:
England: NHS England
Northern Ireland: Health and Social Care Board
Scotland: Primary Care Divisions within Health Boards
LAS posts are not usually considered to be equivalent to a UK DCT programme.
Demonstrating equivalence
Dental Core Training in the UK is a structured period of training in a secondary care or specialised primary care environment. Progress against agreed development outcomes is monitored and reviewed by an assigned educational supervisor and/or clinical supervisor as part of an educational agreement for training.
The objectives of the placement are selected from the UK DCT curriculum and vary according to the individual's training needs and the opportunities available.
DCT 1 equivalence
To demonstrate DCT1 equivalence, you must show evidence of career development in a similar environment within a structured, supervised and monitored programme for a minimum of 12 months whole-time equivalent by the time of appointment. For example, the start date of the DCT programme being applied for.
Posts considered to be equivalent to DCT1 are:
hospital
general dental practice
community junior training posts
overseas posts
The requirement for each of these types of posts is that the individual has a designated supervisor, undertakes work-based assessment and develops according to a personal development plan set at the beginning of a training period, with an appropriate review of competence progression (as identified in the UK DCT curriculum).
For posts in the UK, these must be posts with prior educational approval from a postgraduate dental dean.
Previous training should include hands-on clinical dental experience or involve training in Oral Pathology, Radiology, Oral Microbiology or Dental Public Health.
Posts not considered to be equivalent to DCT1 are:
Dental Foundation Training posts
Performers List Validation by Experience (PLVE) posts
any post where there is no personal development plan, work-based assessment, evidence of competence progression review or designated supervisor
Masters or PhD programmes
posts that provide service only, with no structured personal development plan
Evidence of DCT1 equivalence
If you believe you can provide evidence of a UK DCT1 equivalent post, you must:
clearly state this on your application form
upload a valid Educational Supervisor Letter of Support which you can find on Oriel's Resource Bank
If you do not upload this evidence at the time you submit your application, it will prevent your application progressing.
DCT1 Equivalence for 2026 applicants:
A process has been developed to facilitate applications to DCT2 posts from individuals who have not followed a standard UK training pathway. The NCDCE 1 process can be used by applicants for DCT2 posts from 2026. Applications for NCDCE1 open on 7th July 2025. For more information go to NHS Education for Scotland’s National Certificate of Dental Core Equivalence (NCDCE1)
DCT2 equivalence
The DCT3 person specification states that you must have evidence of completion of a UK Dental Core Training Year 2 programme by time of post commencement.
If this does not apply to you, however you consider you have acquired experience and/or training which is equivalent to DCT, you can apply for the National Certificate of Dental Core Equivalence 2 (NCDCE 2).
An NCDCE 2 allows those who have experience deemed to be equivalent to a UK DCT2 programme to meet the DCT3 person specification.
Eligibility for temporary UK General Dental Council (GDC) registration
Some preferences will require you to be eligible for full UK GDC registration to take up the post. There will be questions on the application form relating to this and it's important you answer them accurately.
During preferencing, your preferences should then be ranked appropriately. For example, if you are eligible for temporary UK GDC registration, you must move all the preferences labelled "NOT suitable for temporary GDC registrants" to the Not wanted column so you are not considered for these posts.
Guidance for Temporary Registrants
Please note that this is not recruitment guidance, but is general guidance that may be helpful to you if you are successful in securing a post.
Overview
The General Dental Council (GDC) is the regulatory body which regulates dentists in the UK. To practice in the UK, one requires registration with the GDC. There are two types of registration:
Full registration which you can gain on graduating from a UK dental school, or in most cases a European dental school, or by passing the Overseas Registration Examination. More guidelines can be found on the GDC website, including some alternative paths to full registration.
Temporary registration which is given by the GDC for a limited period of time, typically to work in secondary and tertiary care NHS hospitals. Please note, temporary registration does not lead to full GDC registration and can only be given for a maximum of 5 years.
Dental Core Training (DCT) and temporary registration
Getting a Dental Core Training (DCT) post which is "suitable for temporary registration" makes you eligible for temporary registration with the GDC.
It is important to note that not all DCT posts allow people to work on temporary registration, hence it is important to only choose those posts in the preference list on Oriel which are suitable for temporary registration.
If a DCT post remains vacant after National Recruitment, it is sometimes recruited to locally.
When that happens, the post will typically still be eligible for temporary registration, and the guidance in this section remains valid.
However, in those cases, the employing Trust handles any visa requirements in place of NHS England’s national team.
Locally recruited posts are advertised on local Trusts' websites and on websites including; jobs.nhs.uk or trac.jobs.
Getting a Dental Core Training (DCT) post
Dental Core Training is a program which allows dental graduates who have worked clinically as a dentist for at least 1 year after graduation to work in dental specialties and OMFS.
DCT recruitment has two components, a situational judgement test (SJT) and an interview.
Steps involved for applying for General Dental Council (GDC) registration
After you have successfully managed to secure a DCT post suitable for temporary registration, it is important to start your registration process with the GDC as soon as you receive your
offer on Oriel as it can take some time.
The following steps should be followed to apply for temporary registration:
For someone who is applying for temporary registration, click on the "Temporary Registration Application" at the end of the questionnaire and fill in your personal details
After filling the personal details, a form will be generated in the PDF format. This is the Temporary Registration Form which is unique to you and will have your name. This form cannot be used by another individual
The PDF form needs to be emailed to the relevant HR department or Lead Employer Trust, which will have been in touch with you to discuss your contract and to carry out relevant employment checks. Section 2 of the form needs to be filled out by the relevant HR officer
Important - let HR know that they will need to print out Section 2 of the form, hand fill it and hand sign it (also known as wet signature), and send it by post back to you i.e sending the signed hard copy back to your address or any address in the UK if you have family/friends and it is difficult for HR to send it internationally. They should also scan it and send an electronic copy as well for record purposes
Section 3 of the form needs to be emailed to your relevant supervising consultant or Training Program Director. To find out the email address of the relevant consultant, please check on the Excel sheet provided by DCTNRO. Scroll towards the right of the excel sheet to find the relevant details under the heading "Contact Email Address". This will either be the relevant consultant, or someone who can put you in touch with them
Important - mention that the form needs to be printed, hand filled and hand signed by your supervising consultant (also known as wet signature) and then posted back to your address or any address in the UK if you have family/friends and it is difficult for the department to send it internationally. They should also scan it and send an electronic copy as well for record purposes
Please request the HR officer dealing with your case to get in touch with the Deanery’s office to send you a “letter from the Deanery” which is an appointment letter that is generated from the Dental Dean’s office, confirming that you have been appointed to the relevant DCT post. That letter can be sent directly to the GDC on their email address and can also be emailed to you. Please print a copy of the letter and attach it to your application
Section 4 (Character Reference) and Section 6 (Clinical Reference) of the form can be filled by the relevant authorities in the country you are practicing in currently. If you are not actively practicing, then the Dean of the dental university you graduated from can fill and sign the form on your behalf. Please read instructions provided at the end of the temporary registration form for further detail
A degree certificate and a passport copy along with proof of identity needs to be attached to the form, details of which are provided at the end of the temporary registration form
If you are not a UK citizen and require visa sponsorship for a DCT post in England, then NHS England Overseas Sponsorship team will get in touch with you to issue you a "Certificate of Sponsorship" (CoS). Contact them via email at [email protected].
If your DCT post is located in another part of the UK, then there will be separate arrangements regarding visa sponsorship for you to follow.
A CoS is needed to apply for a Health and Care Visa. NHS England will require you to create an online account on the website mentioned in their email where you will be required to fill your personal information and additional details needed for them to generate a CoS.
Please follow the instructions provided in the email that you will receive from the team. Those instructions are also available on the Overseas applicants page on the Medical Hub.
It is recommended to start as soon as you receive your email from the team to avoid any delays in getting the CoS issued.
Remain vigilant and keep a lookout for any emails that you receive. It is important to apply for your temporary registration, certificate of sponsorship and your health and care visa as soon as possible as during the months of April to September, the GDC is very busy with processing registration applications and NHS England has a huge workload of processing all the applications for new doctors/dentists starting in August and September
After your visa has been processed, start looking for accommodation. Hospital accommodation is a great option and can be requested in the relevant hospital where you will be working. It is best to ask the HR officer whom you are in contact with to give you details of the hospital accommodation team so you can apply for the accommodation in due time
If unable to acquire hospital accommodation, websites such as Rightmove or Zoopla can be used to search for accommodation. If you are not applying for hospital accommodation, then you will most likely require a guarantor who is someone who will sign on your behalf during your tenancy agreement to pay for any rent which you have failed to pay. Most accommodations will require you to produce a guarantor, who can be anyone from your friends or family
Keep in touch with your Educational Supervisor and try to visit the department for shadowing before your official start date
Creating a UK bank account when you have landed in the UK is important for the HR to credit your salary into. A letter from HR stating your annual salary, working arrangements, work location, and confirmation of your employment should be requested. This letter can then be shown to relevant bank staff which will help expedite the process of opening a UK bank account
Acknowledgements
This advice was first prepared by Zaid Bin Sohail, DCT2 and temporary registrant, in July 2024.
It was reviewed by Paul Blaylock, Associate Dean for DCT, and colleagues in NHS England Workforce, Training and Education North East.
Right to work in the UK
You will be required to provide right to work documentation to demonstrate your eligibility to work in the UK.
