Ranking and offers

You will be notified on the status of your Dental Foundation Training (DFT) application via Oriel.

Offer matching 

There are two steps that form part of the offer matching process. First is your national ranking and secondly is your preferencing ranking. We will go into detail below: 

National Ranking

The scores will be centrally collated to produce a single national ranking based upon the scores from the SJT.

You will be provided with your score and rank after the first offers have been released. Please keep in mind we do not guarantee that you will receive a DFT offer.

Your total score is made up of 100% of your score equalling your mark on the SJT.

In the event of tied ranks, there are a number of pilot questions included in the SJT which are not used to determine your SJT score but will be used for the purposes of breaking ties.

The pilot questions do not lengthen the duration of the SJT test.

If the pilot questions do not then break the ties, the scores across the 4 domains assessed in the SJT will be used to break ties.

Case study

You will receive your offer rank and total SJT score on the day offers are released.

Offer process

Below are details of how the offer process works

Step 1 - Preferencing

Applicants are required to preference schemes and you will be notified when the window opens and closes.

Step 2 - Offer match

The preferences that are saved when the window closed will be used to run a match and therefore be used to make offers.

Step 3 - Offer

Once you have been made an offer you will be notified via Oriel and required to make a decision on your offer. You will be required to make a decision on your offer within 48 hours of receiving the offer.

If you do not receive an offer in the first match:

Not all appointable applicants will receive an offer in the first offer match. This is normal and does not necessarily mean you will not receive an offer later in the recruitment process.

There are several reasons why you may not receive an offer initially:

Ranked too low for an offer

Your overall rank was not high enough to secure one of your preferred schemes during the first offer match. If this is the case, you will remain eligible for future offer matches and may receive an offer if vacancies become available.

Preferenced out

Whilst we aim to offer as many training places as possible, applicants may sometimes limit their preferences to a small number of schemes. If all of those schemes are filled by higher-ranked applicants, you may not receive an offer even if your rank would have been high enough to receive an offer elsewhere.

This is known as being "preferenced out".

If you are preferenced out:

• Your Oriel status will normally remain as interview complete.
• You will continue to be included in future offer matches throughout the recruitment round.
• Your rank remains active and you may still receive an offer if a suitable preferred scheme becomes available.
• If preferencing reopens, we strongly recommend widening your scheme preferences to increase the number of opportunities available to you.

Please note that applicants can be appointable and rank highly, but still not receive an offer if they have selected only a limited number of preferences that are no longer available.

No preferences submitted

Applicants who do not submit preferences cannot be included in the matching process. If the preferencing window reopens, you should submit your preferences as soon as possible to be considered in future offer matches. We will contact applicants who have not selected any preferences to confirm whether they still wish to continue with the recruitment process.

Offer Iterations

Further offer matches are normally run no sooner than 48 hours after the previous offer round, where vacancies remain available.

Whilst we aim to release offers as quickly as possible, accuracy and fairness remain our priority. As a result:

• The timing of offer releases may vary
• There may be periods where no offer matches are run.
• Not every iteration will result in new offers being released.

Applicants on the reserve list should regularly monitor both their email account and Oriel messages, as offers may be issued at short notice and acceptance deadlines are strictly applied.

Until recruitment is complete, any declined or expired offers will usually be reoffered in subsequent match iterations to the next eligible appointable applicants, in rank order and according to their saved preferences.

More guidance on offers

Your offer match to a DFT scheme will depend on the ranking you achieve as a result of your Situational Judgement Test (SJT) performance and the preferences that you submit on Oriel.

The first ranked applicant will be offered their first preferenced scheme and so on.

See the case study below for more details.

Once the offer match been released you will be either:

• Notified via oriel that an offer to a DFT scheme has been made
• A notification that all current vacancies have been filled and you are on the reserve list

Offers of training placements are conditional and will be made to those who gain Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) or equivalent by 12pm, Wednesday 2 June 2027.

Your allocation to a DFT scheme will depend on the ranking you achieve as a result of your Situational Judgement Test (SJT) performance and the preferences that you submit on Oriel.

The first ranked applicant will be offered their first preferenced scheme and so on.

Making a decision on your offer

To accept or decline an offer, click on the appropriate button from the Offer/Actions section of the offer summary.

When you click on Accept you will be taken to a confirmation screen.

You must ensure that you tick the confirmation check box before you click the confirm button in order to confirm your response. 

A green confirmation message box is displayed at the top of the screen when you have successfully submitted your response. 

You will be given 48 hours in which to accept, accept with upgrades, or reject an offer by logging in to Oriel and going to the offer tab of your dashboard.

If you fail to accept during this 48 hour period, you will be deemed to have rejected the offer made and the system will automatically expire the offer.

Should you be unsuccessful in obtaining your BDS by 12pm, Wednesday 2 June 2027 you will be withdrawn from the recruitment process.

The Oriel message you receive once you have been made an offer is your official confirmation of a conditional offer pending preemployment checks to Dental Foundation Training.

Any documentation required to support external processes (e.g. Mortgage) will need to be discussed with the lead employer/region where your offer is in.

Once an offer is accepted it cannot be changed to a training placement to another NHSE Local Office/Deanery or scheme unless you opt in to upgrades in the first offer phase.

Once upgrade deadline has passed, there will be no opportunity to change offers or swap offers with applicants.

Update for candidates applying for VTS - Dental Foundation Training (DFT) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Scottish Dental Vocational Training Scheme (VTS) recruitment processes are aligned to ensure fairness and consistency for all applicants. 

You may apply to both DFT and VTS. However:

• You may only accept one training post
• Accepting a post in one process will result in automatic withdrawal from the other process 

This means if you accept a VTS offer, your DFT application will be withdrawn

This approach reduces late withdrawals and helps ensure training opportunities are offered as fairly as possible to all applicants. 

You are strongly advised to:

• Review all offers carefully before making a decision
• Be confident in your choice before accepting an offer

Upgrades

What is upgrading

Upgrading allows you to be considered for a higher-ranked scheme after you have accepted an offer.

If a scheme you ranked higher becomes available, you may be automatically moved (upgraded) to that scheme.

How to opt in for upgrades

Upgrades are only available if you opt into them after you accept your offer.

You must confirm and accept the opt in.

You do not need to opt in for upgrades if you are happy with your offer and if you receive an upgrade.

If you later decide you no longer want to be considered for upgrades, you must opt out.

Preferencing

Once you have opted in you can review your scheme ranking on a separate preference page. Any schemes you have ranked higher than the scheme you have been offered will be available for the matching process to automatically match you with, so please ensure you have reviewed your schemes each time preferencing is open so you have the correct schemes ranked.

How upgrade matching works

The algorithm will review the ranks and application status of candidates when a match is run, if your application has been opted into upgrades if a post is available that you have ranked higher than the post you have matched with is available you are automatically upgraded into it, and your original post is no longer available for you. If there is no post available, your offer will not change.

You will be notified via Oriel if you have been upgraded, or that preferencing has opened which indicates as match has been run.

Upgrade deadline

Upgrading offer matches will continue until the upgrade deadline of 2pm, Thursday 3 June 2027.

After this date, no further upgrades will be offered and swapping of schemes is not permitted. This will be your final post.

Case study

Reject an offer

If you reject an offer, you will not be included in any further offer matching in the recruitment round.

Any offer that is declined or that expires will be reoffered in 48-hour iterations to the next eligible appointable applicants, in rank order and according to saved preferences.

If you are therefore initially placed on the reserve list – it is advisable to check your email and Oriel account regularly as offers will be ongoing throughout the offer matching process until the transfer of information date.

Reserve list and future offer matches

Applicants who do not receive an offer in the first offer match will normally remain on the reserve list (provided they are appointable).

Your rank remains active and you can still be considered for future offers throughout the recruitment round.

Offers may become available when:

• additional training places are released
• other applicants decline their offer
• offers expire without being accepted
• applicants withdraw from the recruitment process

Any available posts will be offered to the next eligible appointable applicant in rank order, taking into account their saved preferences.

Case study

Preferencing out

Whilst we aim to offer as many posts as possible in our matches, on occasion applicants will rank a small number of preferences and these are no longer available to match to an offer.

You can rank high enough to receive an offer but due to the limited schemes you have selected during preferencing will mean you have not received an offer, and your Oriel status is Interview Complete.

You will continue to be included in offer matches, and we advise that you widen your scheme preference choices when preferences are open to increase the opportunities of receiving a match.

Enquiries

Any further enquiries should be made via the Applicant Support Portal.