Animal Trust Veterinary New Graduate Programme UK
Launch your veterinary career with purpose at Animal Trust – the UK’s leading social enterprise veterinary group.
Why Join Animal Trust's Graduate Vet Programme?
Are you a recent veterinary graduate looking for a supportive, hands-on start to your career? At Animal Trust, we offer a unique Veterinary Graduate Programme designed to build your confidence, sharpen your clinical skills, and help you thrive in a real-world, first-opinion setting.
RCVS VetGDP Support
Hands-On Clinical Experience
Structured CPD & Mentorship
Peer Support Network
Career Progression
Being Part of a Mission-Driven Team
A Rewarding Caseload
As a social enterprise veterinary group, Animal Trust reinvests our profits in our people and our clinics. That means more support, better equipment, and a team that genuinely cares about your growth.
What we offer
Benefits offered by Animal Trust
- Funded CPD
- Private health care, 52 weeks sickness benefit and free employee assistance programme — all awarded after qualifying period
- RCVS and VDS fees paid
- 52 weeks sickness benefit, private healthcare and a free employee assistance programme
- Cycle to work scheme
- E-Car Scheme
- Store discounts platform
- Staff discount
- Contributory pension scheme
- Enhanced maternity and paternity package
- Access to counselling support, including mental health, financial and life counselling (after 12 months of service) — all staff
- Refer-a-Friend bonus
Where You’ll Work
We have opportunities across our network of surgeries with locations across the North West, North Wales, Shropshire, Yorkshire & Scotland, including:
Manchester, Merseyside, Blackburn, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Dewsbury, Glasgow, Rhyl, Barnsley & Telford.
Hear from our vets
Hear from some of our vets about their experiences, how our graduate programme supports newly qualified vets and what advice they'd give to a new graduate vet starting out.
Clinical Director
Daniel Boni
Graduate
Gracie
Graduate
Georgie
Is Animal Trust right for you?
Purpose and Values
The most important thing that we look for in all of our new employees is a shared belief in our purpose and values. We want to make trusted veterinary care easy to access.
Values
• Animal Welfare First - Welfare guides our decisions. • Right Care, Right Cost - We deliver quality care that’s fair, transparent and good value. • Better Together - We care for each other, so we can care for pets.
Community Commitment
We’re a Community Interest Company, which means we reinvest most of our income into care to improve access, quality, and team support, helping pets live healthier and happier lives. We work with charities, regulators, and professionals to achieve our goals and promote veterinary care and animal welfare.
FAQs
Do I need experience in surgery?
No – we’ll support you every step of the way, from first spay to complex procedures.
Is this a rotational programme?
You will be based at one surgery, with opportunities to visit others for CPD and support.
What will I be doing?
You’ll see lots of sick pets, so you’ll gain experience and skills in managing your own first-opinion cases quickly. But don’t worry, we’re not going to throw you in at the deep end. Your working day is structured with lots of admin time and breaks. Your consult time and the number of operations that you’ll be expected to complete will gradually increase over time, and you’ll be supported by an experienced team around you, as well as your VetGDP Adviser, along the way.
What does the programme include?
Our programme offers you the unique opportunity to begin working in a veterinary surgery or hospital through a safe, supported route, whilst receiving further training and veterinary experience. You’ll gain invaluable insights from our workshops and hands-on experience in a broad range of areas, with a focus on:
Neutering
Efficient and effective consulting
Dentistry
Feline internal medicine
Emergency and critical care
Clinical governance
Imaging
Basic orthopaedics
We operate four 24/7 sites with large teams of vets, in a surgical or medical bias. Our hospitals work closely with our branch practices, each with around seven vets or more.
Due to the type of work we do our sites have multiple vets - including certificate holders and advanced practitioners. The number of vets in our clinics mean you will never be working sole charge during the week, meaning you have lots of experienced vets to help support your journey when needed.
What is the length of the contract?
Our graduate programme is two years long, and there is no financial tie-in the end. Once you finish the programme, it leads to a permanent role at Animal Trust. However if for any reason, you wish to leave at the end of the graduate programme, you can do this and there is no financial tie-in.
What qualifications do I need to apply for the programme?
You will need a Degree in Veterinary Medicine to apply for the programme.
Are there opportunities for permanent roles after the programme?
Applications are open from October to mid January, early application is advised for summer start dates.
What do we look for in you?
We want to see examples of what our values mean to you. To us, here are some examples of how these might look in a new graduate.
- We’re interested in your EMS, but we think you’ve probably had part-time jobs working with customers – for example, in a bar, restaurant, or shop. That experience has taught you how to work with a diversity of people, and you have learned the importance of clear, straightforward communication.
- Some of this work experience might have been fast-moving or busy. That has taught you to be calm under pressure and understand that you can always go to others for advice. Think about the challenges you faced in your part-time jobs. How did you overcome them?
- You might have done some voluntary work in the area of animal welfare or other charitable organisations.