Picture the scene: a bright-eyed newly qualified midwife, fresh from three years of training and several thousand pounds of taxpayer investment, walks out the door after a couple of shifts on a chronically understaffed ward. Multiply that image by the hundreds and you have the quiet exodus currently draining the NHS of its future.
In the financial year 2025-26, 1,669 midwives aged 34 or under handed in their notice. That figure represents 57 per cent of the 2,949 midwives of all ages who resigned. Break it down further and the picture sharpens: 205 were under 25, 655 were between 25 and 29, and 809 were 30 to 34. Compare it with 2014-15, when 1,051 under-35s left, and the jump is a sobering 59 per cent.
The attrition rates among the young are particularly grim. Roughly 10 per cent of all midwives depart the NHS annually, yet the rate climbs to 14.6 per cent for those aged 25 to 29 and 16.6 per cent for the 30-34 cohort. Meanwhile almost one in four midwifery students never even reaches qualification. Of 3,565 who began training in 2021, only 2,725 graduated in 2024. The talent pipeline is leaking before it has properly started.
The exodus of midwives under 35 is deeply worrying. Too many are burnt out within a few years of qualifying. Losing them is a terrible waste of talent.
Those are the words of Hannah Leonard, deputy chief midwife at the Royal College of Midwives. She is not exaggerating for effect. According to the same organisation, nine in ten midwives say unsafe staffing levels compromise the quality of care they can give, and three quarters have contemplated leaving because of precisely those pressures.
Independent reviews led by Donna Ockenden and Valerie Amos have already flagged chronic staff shortages as a central culprit in maternity safety failures. When the people delivering the next generation feel overwhelmed from the outset, it is not merely a workforce statistic. It is a direct threat to the dignity of family life at its most vulnerable beginning.
