For skilful and generally felicitous individuals, pursuing a vocation in dentistry can be fierce yet extremely rewarding. The lethally challenging market of the dental industry continues to make its rounds as a progressively innovative and exemplary discipline that can be enormously valuable to your career opportunities and goals. While the student may endure certain obstacles during the course of their practice, dentistry strives to build a supreme work ethic with relentless commitment and motivation.
As a freshly graduated dentist, you’ll be responsible for preventing and treating problems that affect your patient’s oral and dental wellbeing. The most common role you’ll be asked to fill in is the role of a general dental practitioner (GDP). As one, you can work as a self-employed contractor providing services to the general public, or you may even push towards building a reputation by working at hospitals, the NHS or major corporate dental firms.
Associate dentistry
With over-head costs shooting through the roof, most dentists have learned to reaffirm their faith in the NHS system by working diligently as professionals respectfully known as Associate Dentists. These Associate Dentists work in dental practices either as non-owner employees or as independent contractors, often mixing NHS with private work.
The environment of the workplace makes a huge difference in the way an Associate Dentist commits to his or her responsibilities. The working climate can range from a single practitioner to a large dental partnership with several Associates. Dentists can also fulfil their objectives by working for both the NHS and private sectors. Below are some of the different processes you’ll be required to follow to become an associate, depending on where your qualifications and interests lead you.
- NHS: As a newly qualified Dentist, you’ll be required to complete one year of foundation training if you want to work in the NHS. During this time, you’ll be time-bound by the increased number of patients visiting and also regulated to meet a set target for UDAs within the year.
- Special interests: As an established dental Associate, you may be interested to focus on certain treatment procedures over others. For example, you may be primarily focused on providing GDP Orthodontics or specialisation in dental Implantology, depending on the type of dentistry you provide.
- EEA Dentists: A significant percentage of Dentists in the UK are from the EEA, especially when it comes to those who work for the NHS. Any Dentists from the EEA with primary qualifications specified in the EC Directive can register with the GDC and work in the UK.
- PLVE: The Performer’s List Validation by Experience (PLVE) is the process by which Performer Numbers are awarded to non-UK/EEA dental graduates who have gained sufficient clinical experience and training in their home country to work in the NHS.
How much do Associate Dentists earn in the UK?
The average Associate Dentist salary is £69,489. As newly qualified Dentists, you’ll be able to start off with a base salary of £32,050 when providing services for the NHS during your one year of foundation training.
Most Dentists are self-employed contractors in general practice, who also work for the NHS. In scenarios as such, profits of dental practices can vary greatly depending on the pool of devoted and new customers in your private practice. Nevertheless, you can expect to earn around £50,000 to £110,000. Wholly, private Dentists can earn a whopping £140,000 and more.
On the other hand, if you enter dental core training, instead of working in general practice, you’ll earn a salary of £37,935 to £48,075. Additional payments for night shifts, weekends, and on-call work may be permitted. As a salaried dentist employed by the NHS, mainly in community dental services, you can easily earn around £40,629 to £86,900.
Lastly, in NHS trust hospitals, consultants in dental specialties earn a basic salary of £79,869 to £107,668 depending on the number of years spent in the consultant grade.
If you are a recently qualified Associate or experienced Dentist Dentex Health are a fantastic place to develop your career. Since inception in 2014, Dentex Health has collaborated with a substantial number of successful dental practices across the UK and are on track to achieve 150 partner practices by 2022. Working for Dentex, you will join a collective of practices with a mutual interest in seeing the group grow and thrive. If you are interested in working at Dentex Health please check out their current vacancies at https://careers.dentex.group