When UK vets talk about working abroad, the conversation goes to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Ireland rarely comes up, which is odd for a move that needs no visa, no examination and no registration process running into months.
Getting there is the easy part. The major considerations are what changes once you arrive: the caseload, the pay, and where in Ireland the veterinary jobs are.
Your degree survived Brexit
The Veterinary Council of Ireland recognises veterinary degrees from all 8 UK universities accredited by the RCVS.
That recognition doesn’t run through EU law, which is the part people get wrong. When the transition period ended, the RCVS and the VCI confirmed a mutual recognition agreement between the two regulators so each would continue to recognise the other’s accredited degrees. A UK vet registers in Ireland on their UK degree, and an Irish graduate registers in the UK on theirs.
What the VCI asks for is a notarised copy of your degree, your transcript and your passport, and a certificate of current professional standing from the RCVS that’s less than three months old on the day you register. The VCI asks you to allow up to 10 working days. First registration runs from €620 to €240 depending on which quarter you apply in, with annual retention at €505 if you pay before January. There’s no examination, no adaptation period and no language test.
What you don’t need, and what you do
Under the Common Travel Area, a UK citizen needs no visa, no work permit and no residence permission to live and work in Ireland. That predates the EU and it outlasted Brexit. The one caveat is that those rights are yours, not your family’s: a non-EEA partner applies separately.
Three things do catch people out.
- You need a PPS number to work and to register for tax, and you can’t apply for one until you’ve arrived. Build a fortnight into your first month for it.
- Your UK driving licence stops being valid. It has to be exchanged for an Irish one, which costs €55 and needs an eyesight report dated within the month and a DVLA check code. For a mixed or farm role, that’s not administrative trivia, it’s your ability to do the job.
- Healthcare works differently. You’re entitled to the same care as an Irish citizen once you’re ordinarily resident, but Irish public healthcare isn’t free at the point of use the way the NHS is. Medical cards and GP visit cards are means-tested, and most working vets won’t qualify.
What changes clinically
Irish practice is substantially more mixed than UK practice. The VCI’s workforce report puts companion animal work at 40.6% of clinical practice, mixed at 35.5%, farm animal at 12.5% and equine at 11.4%. Nearly half of Irish clinical practice involves farm or mixed work.
If you trained in the UK, did your EMS on farms and then spent four years in small animal because that’s where the jobs were, Ireland is the shortest route back to the work you thought you’d be doing.
The same report shows why that matters commercially. Farm animal provision fell 21% nationally between 2016 and 2022, a significant share of food animal vets are approaching retirement, and farm practices are often single-vet operations. The VCI projects a shortfall of 499 veterinary practitioners by 2033 on medium-growth assumptions.
Ireland is responding. UCD was the country’s only veterinary school until two new schools at SETU and ATU were approved, adding 80 places a year from 2026. Those graduates are six years away, and the gap is being filled by vets who trained elsewhere: 38% of veterinary practitioners on the Irish register qualified outside Ireland.
Pay, and where to live
The most recent credible study, published in the Irish Veterinary Journal in 2022, put the median gross salary for vets in Ireland at €50,000, with a substantial gender gap behind that median. That figure is four years old, which is why it’s worth asking about pay directly rather than working from it.
The Residential Tenancies Board put the national average rent on new tenancies at €1,755 a month in late 2025, against €2,232 in Dublin and €1,385 outside the greater Dublin area. A rural or mixed role outside the commuter belt comes with rents around 38% below Dublin’s, in a country where the regional jobs are the ones crying out for people.
The EU question
A UK vet registered in Ireland has a route into the rest of the EU, but not an automatic one.
Registering in Ireland doesn’t convert a UK degree into an EU qualification. What it does is start a clock: a third-country qualification recognised by one member state, combined with three years of professional experience in that state, can be presented for recognition elsewhere in the EU. That’s a case-by-case assessment under the general system, not the automatic recognition an EU graduate gets. It’s a real route on a three-year clock, and worth planning for rather than assuming.
If Ireland is on your list
Ireland asks less of you than any other international move and offers a genuinely different job: more mixed practice, more farm work, a shortage concentrated exactly where the countryside is, and none of the visa machinery that makes a move to Australia a 12-month project.
If you’re weighing it against something further afield, our guide to veterinary careers in New Zealand covers the other end of the spectrum, and what’s driving UK vets to move in 2026 sets out why so many are looking.
Talk to us early. GVC will check your certificate of current professional standing is in hand before you apply, map the practices that suit the caseload you want, and be straight with you about what a role pays against the cost of living.
