First, the thing that needs saying plainly: if you have CCT'd into the current market and are struggling to find work, the problem is the market's structure, not your employability. BMA surveying shows a majority of sessional GPs unable to find the hours they want; you are inside a documented system failure, and the response is tactics, not self-doubt. Here is the practical sequence.
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Define what "can't find work" means for you. No work at all, not enough sessions, or not the right sessions in the right place? The tactics differ, and writing down your actual constraints, radius, days, minimum income, role types you would accept for a year, converts anxiety into a search specification.
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Expand the geographic radius deliberately. The market's core problem is spatial mismatch: competition is fiercest exactly where most GPs want to live. Test a thirty-mile alert against your ten-mile one; the difference is often the whole answer, and a year's commute can fund the move to the job you actually want.
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Contact practices directly. A short, specific email to practice managers within your radius, who you are, sessions available, special interests, beats waiting for adverts; many salaried hires, especially reimbursement-scheme-funded ones, never reach a jobs board.
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Contact your LMC. LMCs run job lists, know which practices are hiring before adverts exist, and increasingly run schemes for un- and underemployed GPs; this is the highest-yield fifteen-minute email in the search.
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NHS Jobs, with tight alerts, for salaried and fixed-term posts, checking daily in application season because strong posts close fast.
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BMJ Careers alerts alongside, for the salaried and partnership layer.
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Join the local locum groups, WhatsApp, Facebook, chambers, where much real sessional work circulates; visibility in these networks compounds.
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Register on the locum platforms, Lantum and equivalents, and with NASGP if going properly independent; imperfect markets, but real sessions flow through them.
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Take OOH and urgent treatment centre work seriously, a consistently recruiting sector that keeps skills broad, income flowing and often converts to more.
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Consider fixed-term and maternity-cover posts as on-ramps: imperfect on paper, frequently the route to the permanent role when it appears.
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Look at portfolio building blocks: CQC-registered private providers, remote and digital-first services, insurance medicals, all legitimate bridge income while the NHS core is thin.
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Teaching: medical school tutoring, OSCE examining, training-hub work; paid, portfolio-enhancing, and network-rich.
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Fellowship posts, new-to-practice and locally funded fellowships where they exist in your patch, ask the training hub, combine income, development and connection.
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Urgent care, prisons, occupational health: the adjacent clinical markets that hire GPs steadily and are chronically under-considered.
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Research: practice-based research networks and NIHR-adjacent roles take GP time, and the skills compound.
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Use the BMA's support: its un- and underemployment resources include CV and interview help, financial guidance and wellbeing support built for exactly this situation.
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Maintain your portfolio and CPD as if employed, because you are one interview from needing them and because a maintained professional record is itself an interview asset. Appraisal continues regardless of employment status; keep your evidence continuous, your knowledge demonstrably current, and your reflection habit alive, this is precisely what My CPD exists to make cheap in time, and a candidate who can show assessed, current clinical knowledge across the GP scope after months out of regular work has answered the interviewer's real question before it is asked.
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Protect the finances and the person: emergency-budget early rather than late, use the pension and tax levers properly, and treat the documented stress of this situation, 69 percent in the BMA's survey, as a medical fact deserving the same care you would prescribe a patient.
The market context, and why this is genuinely not about you, is at /blog/why-are-gps-struggling-to-find-jobs; the regional picture at /blog/where-are-gp-jobs-available-uk. The 2026/27 funding changes push money directly at practice-level GP employment, and early data shows salaried numbers rising; the tactics above are how to be first in the queue as that works through.
Frequently asked questions
How long is this likely to last for me personally?
Unknowable individually; what is knowable is that channel breadth shortens it. GPs running six of the channels above consistently report finding something workable within months, usually via the invisible market rather than the boards.
Should I take work well below my previous rate?
A floor is legitimate and yours to set; a bridge role at an imperfect rate that maintains skills, networks and income usually beats a principled empty diary. Reassess quarterly, not per offer.
Which three of the eighteen should happen this week?
The LMC email, direct approaches to five practices, and the radius-widened alerts: highest yield per hour, and all free. The rest sequence naturally once those are moving.