Ireland’s Future Health and Social Care Workforce paper published in December 2025 sets out an evidence-based strategic direction for the health and social care workforce for the next 15 years. It focuses on the long-term demand and supply of health and social care workers out to 2040. It covers the entire health and social care sector, including public, private and voluntary.
Ireland has a growing and ageing population and demand for health and social care services is increasing. ERSI research shows that Ireland’s population is projected to increase from 5.3 million in 2023 to between 5.9 and 6.3 million by 2040, with the range reflecting differing assumptions on future migration trends. Importantly, the number of people aged 65 years and over will increase from 1 in 7 of the population in 2023 to 1 in 5 by 2040.
The increase in demand for nurses and midwives is set out in Ireland’s health and social care paper. It shows an increase in demand from 2023-2040 of 43%. Nurses and midwives are grouped together as we are not yet able to distinguish them sufficiently within available data. Further detail can be found in Ireland’s Health and Social Care Paper here: assets.gov.ie/static/documents/c68b88d0/Irelands_Future_Health_and_Social_Care_Workforce.pdf
The technical work underlying projections are outlined here: assets.gov.ie/static/documents/5c7b3e74/Future_HSC_Workforce_Technical_Note.pdf
These projections incorporate gradual increases in the domestic supply of domestic nurses and midwives over time to meet projected demand.
It is important to note that the workforce demand projections incorporate the outputs of the recently completed Health Service Capacity Review. This was delivered by the ESRI in collaboration with the Department of Health and the HSE and estimated demand for services across Acutes, Long-Term Care and GP services. The demand scenarios included are the result of a series of workshops involving DoH and HSE officials over 2024 and 2025. Detail on how these outputs were incorporated into the growth rates for the workforce demand model can be found on page 3 of the following Technical Note:
assets.gov.ie/static/documents/5c7b3e74/Future_HSC_Workforce_Technical_Note.pdf
Regarding demand for maternity services, it is important to consider skills mix and staffing levels, decreasing births, rising complexities during pregnancy and delivery, regional trends and graduate supply pipelines. Ireland has the highest rate of practising midwives per 1000 at 0.80 for 2023 (or 0.82 for 2024). However, due to the close historic links between the nursing and midwifery profession, a large amount of NMBI registered midwives are currently practising but not as midwives so further data retrieval and analysis is required to determine the number of midwives delivering maternity care.
To enable and support workforce planning efforts for midwives, the Department is engaging with the NMBI to more accurately identify what division of the register someone is practising in. This is expected to improve our understanding of the number of registrants working as midwives and better identify those coming on and off the register. This will support improved workforce supply modelling in future.
Higher Education Authority (HEA) data in the table below shows the number of graduates in midwifery in each of the academic years from 2020/21 to 2024/25. Every new graduate is offered a contract upon graduation.
Midwifery Graduates 2020 – 2024
Note: HEA data for midwifery programmes is rounded to the nearest 5
|
Midwifery Graduates
|
2020
|
2021
|
2022
|
2023
|
2024
|
|
Midwifery Total
|
135
|
115
|
120
|
135
|
140
|
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) data in the table below shows the number of both undergraduate and postgraduate in midwifery registered to the NMBI from 2021-2025.
Midwifery graduates on the NMBI Register 2021 – 2025
|
Year
|
Midwives (undergraduate)
|
Postgraduate Midwifes
|
Total Midwives
|
|
2021
|
115
|
108
|
223
|
|
2022
|
105
|
104
|
209
|
|
2023
|
124
|
10
|
134
|
|
2024
|
144
|
75
|
219
|
|
2025
|
124
|
67
|
191
|
|
Total
|
612
|
364
|
976
|
In regard to the number and proportion of midwives currently employed in the Irish health service, this has been referred to the HSE for direct response to the Deputy as this is an operational matter.
