Annual workforce survey
Published on: 7th September 2022 | Updated on: 1st September 2026
Since 2022, it has been a Terms of Service requirement for pharmacy owners to complete an annual NHS England community pharmacy workforce survey.
The data from the survey is intended to provide the NHS, policymakers and other stakeholders with a picture of the current workforce to:
- understand capacity and challenges;
- guide workforce planning; and
- inform education and training decisions.
Workforce challenges are currently adversely impacting many sectors of the UK economy, but they have been particularly acutely felt within community pharmacy with serious consequences for pharmacy owners.
We called for improved workforce planning to be undertaken by the Government and NHS and they committed to do this in their NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. However, for this to happen, high quality workforce data for community pharmacy needs to be available.
For this reason, we agreed with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England that from 2022 it would become a Terms of Service requirement for pharmacy owners to complete an annual NHS England community pharmacy workforce survey, which will provide a full picture of the community pharmacy workforce.
Regulations were laid in Parliament which made this a requirement of the Terms of Service from 1st October 2022.
At the same time, we agreed with DHSC and NHS England that the requirement to undertake an annual patient satisfaction survey would be removed from the Terms of Service from 1st October 2022, so the workforce survey didn’t create an additional burden for hard-pressed pharmacy owners.
The survey was first undertaken in 2017 and it has been repeated annually since 2021.
The 2026 survey will be open for completion from 14th September 2026 and it closes on 14th November 2026.
The data will be collected via an online survey which can be accessed by logging into the NHSBSA’s Manage Your Service (MYS) portal.
All pharmacy owners in England must complete the survey.
Read more about the survey, download guidance on completing it and read FAQs on the NHS England Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey webpage.
If you need help with your survey submission, please contact the NHSBSA by emailing pharmacysupport@nhsbsa.nhs.uk.
Data from previous surveys is available on the data.gov.uk website.
2025 – NHS England key findings presentation
2024 – NHS England key findings presentation
For more information on this topic please email services.team@cpe.org.uk
