Of the 2,949 midwives who resigned from the NHS in England during 2025-26, more than half were under 35. The Liberal Democrats' parliamentary queries yielded just one number, which reframes what has long been considered as a general staffing shortfall into something more specific and concerning: a profession that is struggling to retain new hires.

The breakdown is stark. 205 of the 1,669 midwives under 34 who departed last year were under 25, 655 were from 25 and 29, and 809 were among 30 and 34. Measured as a proportion of each age group still working, 14.6 per cent of midwives aged 25 to 29 resigned during the year, against an average departure rate across the profession of roughly 10 per cent. The 2025-26 total of under-35 leavers is 59 per cent higher than the equivalent figure a decade earlier. Behind those still practising, the supply line is thinning as well: of 3,565 students who began midwifery degrees in 2021, only 2,725 graduated in 2024, a dropout rate of 24 per cent.

Ministers have responded to scrutiny of maternity staffing by pointing to aggregate numbers. The Department of Health and Social Care notes that there are now 25,500 full-time-equivalent midwives in the NHS, 2,000 more than when the current government took office. That figure is accurate, and it is also beside the point. A headcount that grows while its youngest cohort empties out faster than it can be replaced is not evidence of a stabilising workforce. It is evidence of a workforce being kept afloat by older and more experienced staff who are themselves reporting exhaustion, while the entry-level pipeline that should sustain the service in a decade's time is breaking down in both directions: too many trainees leaving before they qualify, and too many of those who do qualify leaving again within a few years of starting.

There is a second, less visible failure compounding this. Research published by the Royal College of Midwives earlier this year found that nearly a third of newly registered midwives surveyed had been unable to secure a post at all, with many of those who did find work placed on fixed-term contracts or in part-time roles that fell short of what they wanted. Some newly qualified employees are being pushed out of the service just as they become marketable due to recruitment freezes caused by trust-level budgetary limitations. A workforce plan built around headline growth in registration numbers cannot succeed if trusts lack the budget to convert graduates into substantive posts.

This has direct implications for the two reviews that have already shaped the government's approach to maternity safety, led by Donna Ockenden and Valerie Amos, both of which identified inadequate staffing as a central risk to patients. Their recommendations assumed a workforce that could be built up and retained. The current NHS financial settlement appears to be in conflict with safety guidelines that need long-term personnel stability, and the latest figures show that retention rather than recruitment is now the more urgent issue. This is because the current NHS financial settlement pushes trusts toward temporary headcount management.

The political framing of this issue will likely follow familiar lines, with the government citing overall workforce growth and opposition parties citing burnout and unsafe conditions. It is possible for both interpretations to be true simultaneously. What neither fully addresses is the structural mismatch between a training pipeline calibrated to past workforce targets and a service unable to absorb or retain those it produces. Until trusts have the funding to turn newly qualified midwives into permanent, full-time colleagues, and until working conditions improve enough to keep them there beyond their first few years, the headline growth in midwife numbers will continue to mask a service that is losing its future faster than it can build it.