Our data
This area of our site contains detailed information about the medical workforce in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Dashboard pages
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This dashboard page contains information around registered doctors, those who are on the register and hold a current practising certificate. You can also view the same data for past quarters.
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This dashboard page contains information around changes over time in the number and demographics of registered doctors - doctors on the register with a current practising certificate.
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This dashboard page contains information around the distribution of doctors within New Zealand.
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This dashboard page contains further information around the distribution of doctors within New Zealand.
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This dashboard page contains information around new registrations - registrations granted where the doctor was not already on the medical register.
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This dashboard page breaks down new doctors by entry pathway (how they qualified for registration in New Zealand) by ethnicity, gender, age group, and the country of their primary medical qualification.
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This dashboard page contains information around doctors with a vocational scope of practice including breakdowns by age, gender, and ethnicity.
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This dashboard page contains information around doctors undertaking vocational training in New Zealand.
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This dashboard page contains information around doctors sitting our NZREX clinical examination. This includes data around how many doctors pass and how many doctors subsequently gain registration.
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This dashboard page contains information around international medical graduates, doctors who obtained their primary medical qualification outside of New Zealand.
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This dashboard page contains information around Māori and Pasifika doctors in the medical workforce including breakdowns by age, gender, and work role.
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This dashboard page contains information around how long doctors remain in New Zealand after their initial registration.
About the dashboard
The data dashboard has been developed to provide data insights about the medical profession in Aotearoa New Zealand. The information provided will inform all decision makers, Council, medical professionals, and workforce planners.
The data dashboard is not intended to replace the data provided in the annual Workforce Survey and the MCNZ Annual Report.
Over time, the dashboard will deliver data with rich reporting on workforce numbers, trends, IMGs and other areas of interest to MCNZ stakeholders.
Release one - August 2023
This first release of dashboard data provides up-to-date information about the registered medical doctors in New Zealand (including those doctors that have come from overseas to work here). The published data is aggregated data for all doctors, collected when each doctor is granted registration in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Release two - October 2023
The second release of dashboard data adds pages on international medical graduates (IMGs), Māori and Pasifika doctors, and retention.
Tips for using the dashboard
Here are some tips for those not already familiar with using a Power BI dashboard:
- Hovering over a data point on a visual(graph/table) gives a detailed view
- Clicking on an area or number in a visual: if interactivity is switched on, further detail about the selected item will be displayed/highlighted within other visuals on the page.
- Using control and click allows selection of multiple items in a drop-down list.
About our data
Our data sources
The data used in our dashboards comes from three main sources - register data, our workforce survey, and non-register registration data.
Register data
Register data are that used as part of the medical register. This includes doctors’ scopes of practice, practising certificate dates, and qualification data.
Non-register registration data
Non-register registration data are collected from doctors when they renew their practising certificate each year or when doctors notify Council of changes during the year. This includes information on where doctors are employed, the level of their practice, the type of medicine, and whether they are in a vocational training programme.
Workforce survey data
We ask doctors for workforce data as part of their application to renew their practising certificate. This section of the application collects detailed information from doctors about the work they are doing. This fills in the gaps not covered by register data and non-register registration data enriching these datasets.
Ethnicity data
We collect ethnicity data from doctors as part of the workforce survey, completed by doctors at the time of renewing their annual practising certificate. Doctors can choose not to report their ethnicity. Ethnicity data has been linked with registration data to enable reporting on the demographic breakdown of registered medical doctors.
Doctors can report up to three ethnicities. However, when we report data, we assign each doctor a single ethnicity using a simplified version of Statistics New Zealand’s prioritisation standard. The ethnicity we use in analysis is the one reported by the doctor with the highest priority.
The priority order is:
- Māori
- Pasifika (Pacific Island or Pacific Peoples)
- Chinese
- Indian
- Other non-European
- Other European
- New Zealand European/Pākehā.
Gender data
The Council supports the right of people to identify with non-binary genders and have this reflected in their official record. Doctors can update their recorded gender identity at any time through the myMCNZ portal.
There are a small number of doctors on the register with a current practising certificate who identify as gender diverse - four as of 30 June 2023. We have not presented these doctors as a separate group when data has been broken down by gender because of the small size of the group, and the need to preserve privacy.
Gender is a complex area. Not all doctors who identify as a different gender from what they were assigned at birth will have chosen to identify as Gender Diverse. Some will have chosen to record the gender with which they do identify (Male or Female).
Representativeness of survey data
Our workforce survey has a very high response rate - 98.1 percent in 2022. We believe the response is representative and that valid conclusions can be drawn from the data. We make this assertion based on the population size and demographic comparison of the survey data with register data.
The size of the population for our survey is the number of doctors with a current practising certificate - 18,963 as of 31 March 2023. For a population of this size a response rate of 98.1 percent should provide 99 percent certainty. Demographic comparison of the survey data to medical register data shows only very small differences.
See our workforce survey reports for more detail:
https://www.mcnz.org.nz/about-us/what-we-do/workforce-survey/
International medical graduates (IMGs)
We define international medical graduates (IMGs) as doctors who obtained their primary medical qualification in a country other than New Zealand. This does not necessarily mean a doctor is new to the workforce. A lot of IMGs will have worked in New Zealand for many years, sometimes decades.
The country of a doctor's primary medical qualification is separate from their ethnicity and country of birth or nationality.
Reporting period
We report data by fiscal year (FY) - 1 July to 30 June. For example, the 2023 reporting year is 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023. For snapshots, we will specify the date - for example, doctors on the medical register as of 30 June 2023.
Update schedule for dashboard data
The data used in our dashboard are updated regularly. The specific schedule for each dashboard page is:
| Page | Update schedule |
| Registered doctors - snapshot | Quarterly |
| Registered doctors - trends over time | Quarterly |
| New doctor registrations | Quarterly |
| New doctor registrations - entry pathway | Quarterly |
| Vocational | Quarterly |
| NZREX | Monthly |
| International medical graduates | Quarterly |
| Māori and Pasifika doctors | Quarterly |
| Retention | Annually |
Other publications and reports
In addition to the data dashboard, we regularly publish data via our annual reports and workforce survey reports. These reports provide additional detail and commentary on top of the high-level analysis provided by the dashboard.
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Read about our past performance. Our annual reports include detailed information and statistics about our activities for the twelve months from 1 July of a year to 30 June of the following year.
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Council collects workforce data from doctors as part of the renewal of practising certificates.