The General Dental Council is significantly expanding ORE Part 1 capacity in response to the UK dentist shortage. The current capacity of approximately 600 places per year is planned to increase to 4,200 by 2028 — a sevenfold expansion.
What is driving the expansion
The UK faces a structural shortage of dentists, particularly in NHS primary care dentistry outside major cities. The GDC has identified the internationally trained dentist registration pathway as a key lever for increasing the workforce. Expanding ORE capacity allows more internationally trained dentists to enter the UK system each year.
What this means for candidates
More places means more opportunity — the bottleneck of limited exam capacity that previously prevented many internationally trained dentists from attempting UK registration is being removed. However, the pass standard does not change. The exam will remain equally selective regardless of how many candidates sit it.
The practical implication is that preparation quality becomes the differentiating factor rather than access to an exam slot. Candidates who prepare with a UK-aligned question bank covering NICE dental guidelines, SDCEP, BNF dental formulary, and GDC Standards will continue to outperform those who prepare using home-country resources alone.
What this means for the prep market
The expansion from 600 to 4,200 annual candidates creates a preparation market roughly seven times larger than today. This is why iatroX has built a dedicated ORE Part 1 question bank — over 1,500 questions aligned to the GDC syllabus and UK dental guidelines, with adaptive learning and mobile app access. All included at £29 per month or £99 per year.