Parameters

The Retirement Cliff

Physician workforce ageing, harmonized

Sensitivity: assumed retirement age

snaps to 55 / 65 / 75 — the ages the published age bands cut at

Sensitivity: new entrants per year

2.5%

of today's workforce joining annually — drag to test replacement scenarios

Regional depth

A fixed snapshot at each source’s own published age band — the sensitivity sliders above don’t apply here.

Reading the data

One framework across every market, so the shares are comparable. Read the levels with a little latitude: a country counting every licensed physician will show a slightly older profile than one counting only those actually practising. The direction and the ranking are the signal.

2035, under your assumptions

Methodology & sources

Cross-market series

Eurostat’s physicians-by-age-band series, 32 countries, up to 2024/25. Shares 55+ and 65+ computed from the harmonized bands (55–64, 65–74, 75+). Countries report under their national concept (practising / professionally active / licensed) as flagged in Eurostat's reference metadata — the single largest residual caveat, disclosed rather than hidden. The UK last reported in 2019 and its figure is scope-limited; treat with caution.
No harmonized age series exists for dentists or pharmacists at Eurostat (verified against the full catalogue) — physicians only, by necessity.

Regional depth

Spain: INE EPSC, registered physicians by autonomous community, 31 Dec 2024 — regional sum reconciles exactly to the national total (310,558).
Bulgaria: NCPHA yearbook, physicians on primary contract by oblast, 31 Dec 2024.
Hungary: KSH STADAT, physicians by county, 2025; the 265-headcount residual is the source's own "territorially unidentifiable" row.
United Kingdom — England: NHS England General Practice Workforce, 31 Mar 2026, individual-level file, headcount by NHS integrated care board (42 of 42). General practitioners only — roughly a third of England’s physicians. NHS England publishes hospital-doctor age nationally but not by region, and its regional workforce files carry no age field at all: verified against both the Equality & Diversity workbook and the monthly workforce releases. 627 GPs (1.2%) carry no ICB code and are excluded; the regional sum is 50,399 against a published England total of 50,609.
United Kingdom — Wales: StatsWales staff directly employed by NHS Wales, 30 Sep 2025, headcount by local health board. Hospital & community medical and dental staff; GPs and dental practitioners are independent contractors and are excluded, as are the all-Wales bodies (Velindre, Public Health Wales, the ambulance service), so the seven boards sum to 5,769 of 9,817. Welsh age bands break at 51–55 and 56–60, so no 55+ cut exists — this market is shown at 56+ rather than fudged into a 55+ figure.
Scotland and Northern Ireland are absent, not omitted. Both publish physician age nationally and headcount by board or trust, but neither publishes the two crossed; NHS Education for Scotland holds the combination only inside an interactive dashboard, and Northern Ireland’s workforce census tables give trust headcount and age in separate tables that cannot be joined.
Regional figures are registration- or payroll-based and internally consistent within each market. They are not comparable across markets: scope (registered vs active vs contracted, all physicians vs GPs vs hospital staff) and the age boundary itself both vary, and each chart states its own. Italy is shown at 60+ and Wales at 56+ because that is what their sources publish.