Overview of Core Surgery Training CT1/ST1

An overview of Core Surgery Training CT1/ST1.

Working alongside the Royal College of Surgeons, we manage a centralised process aimed at delivering a fair and consistent experience for all.

For more information about Core Surgical Training, please refer to the Royal College of Surgeons’ website.

For careers advice please visit the Health Careers Website.

Detailed information including person specifications, competition ratios and the national medical specialty recruitment applicant handbook are available here.

These pages aim to provide you with information regarding the 2025 Core Surgical Training CT1 recruitment process.

General information regarding recruitment to all specialty training posts are available here.

Summary of 2025 recruitment

Details of the 2024 recruitment process are provided throughout these pages in conjunction with central guidance issued by the national recruitment team that applies across specialties. You can find the central guidance on the Medical Specialty Recruitment page.

You must read these pages and the guidance on the Medical Specialty Recruitment pages before beginning your application.

CST recruitment will involve the following stages (which are outlined in more detail in the relevant sections of these pages):

1. You will submit an online application on Oriel where these are reviewed by the National Recruitment team as part of the longlisting process
2. You will be invited to sit an MSRA exam
3. Only the top scoring 1200 applicants at MSRA will be invited to interview and upload evidence for the portfolio station
4. A combination of your MSRA score and scores at interview will be used to determine your final total score and ranking