If you want to be somewhere new in January, it’s an October-latest decision.
Most qualified veterinary roles in the UK carry a three-month notice period, and clinical director and senior roles often carry longer.
The timeline, working backwards
For a role starting in the first half of January:
- 12 weeks of notice, so you resign in the first half of October
- 2-3 weeks from final interview to a signed offer
- 2-3 weeks from application to final interview
- 2-4 weeks of looking and applying
Decide in January and you’ll be in post around April.
What stretches it often includes references arriving slowly over Christmas, a counter-offer you didn’t expect, or (if you graduated recently) a new practice that isn’t yet an RCVS Approved Graduate Development Practice and has to get a VetGDP Adviser in place before you can start.
Moving between UK practices needs no re-registration, and the only admin is telling the RCVS your new address within 28 days.
If the window has already gone
Locum work starts in weeks rather than months. The SPVS Salary Survey put the median locum day rate at £500 in 2025, up 11% on the year before, and it buys you something a permanent move can’t: you see how several practices work before committing to one. Our blog, Locum vs Permanent in the UK, goes through the income and pension trade-offs in detail.
BVA research found two-thirds of practices took more than three months to fill a veterinary vacancy, and one in 10 took more than six. Practices with a gap in January will take a locum in January.
There’s a third route
Work somewhere else entirely for a few months, then come back.
Short assignments overseas run from a few weeks to a few months. You keep your RCVS registration, you’re not emigrating, and you’re not asking your family to commit to anything permanent.
Vets do it between roles, or in the gap a notice period creates anyway, and come back with a clearer sense of what they want from the next practice. Australia and New Zealand are the usual first thoughts – though Ireland is closer, cheaper and needs no visa at all.
Most vets who move aren’t leaving the profession.
The RCVS found 75% of vets intended to stay in it for five years or more in 2024 and the reasons given by those planning to leave were work-life balance and feeling undervalued rather than the work itself. Most of this is a question about where you work, not whether.
So the useful question isn’t whether to move. It’s which of the three timelines you’re on: a permanent move you start now for January, a locum move you can start in weeks, or a few months somewhere else while you work out which practice you want.
Talk to us before you hand anything in. GVC will look at your contract, your notice period and what’s realistically available in your area on your timeline, and give you a straight read on when you can expect to make a move.
