Number of veterinary surgeons by sector

In the context of our study of veterinary assistants, it is useful to know the number of veterinary surgeons, as this will give an immediate idea of the number of potential employers as well as an idea of the number of jobs available. It is also interesting to note the sector of activity as the hypothesis that assistants are likely to be employed by vets specialising (exclusively or non-exclusively) in canine medicine. The figures given are in absolute and percentage values to allow a better comparison between countries.

Country	DK	ES	FI	FR	HU	PT	RO	SI	SK	UK
Total number of veterinary surgeons	2 800	18 300	1 600	19 944	3 500	4 100	5 200	833	1 820	20 700
General practice vets	1 475	11 000	1 097	16 210	2 200	2 500	0	405	824	8 662
Vets practicising in a pet clinic	675	6 000	709	9 310	800	1 800	2 700	39	824	3650
% General practice vets	53	60	69	81	63	61	52	46	45	42
% Vets practicising in a pet clinic	24	33	44	47	23	44	52	4	45	18

An analysis of these figures shows firstly that the three countries around 20 000 vets are the United Kingdom, France and Spain each. In this group, there are less vets in general practice, due to the high number of vets in other posts mainly in the public sector. This is particularly true of the United Kingdom, where the percentage of general practice vets is only 42% compared to 68% in France and 60% in Spain. Likewise, in the United Kingdom, the percentage of vets practising in a pet clinic is only 18% compared to 46% in France and 33% in Spain.

Ranking second are Romania, Portugal and Hungary with 5200, 4100 and 3500 vets respectively. The percentages for Romania cannot be broken down as no distinction is made between different sectors of activity for vets.

Finally, come Denmark, Slovakia, Finland and Slovenia with 2800, 1820, 1600 and 883 vets respectively. Denmark, and especially Slovenia, have few vets practising in pet clinics. Slovenia stands apart with only 4% of vets specialising in pets, which can be explained by the fact that this country still has a high incidence of mixed rural practices.