6 January 2026
RCSLT has opened its latest workforce survey to identify trends and issues in the speech and language therapy profession
Last summer we published the results from our 2025 survey which showed a slight improvement in vacancy rates among respondents, with 14% of UK SLT posts vacant. However, workforce shortages remain a significant challenge, with not enough practitioners available to fill the roles necessary to meet demand and reduce waiting lists.
We will be repeating the survey each year to identify trends over time and continue to illustrate the need for more speech and language therapists. This year we have added some additional questions proposed by speech and language therapy managers who have previously responded to the survey. These aim to provide insights around recruitment and retention challenges in speech and language therapy.
We encourage services across all four nations to complete the latest survey, allowing us to paint a true picture of the speech and language therapy workforce.
The survey is open to anyone who manages a speech and language therapy service, whether it is based in the NHS or not, as well as those managing SLTs across different settings.
The survey is open until 27 February 2026.
