The doctors’ union also wants the guarantee of new training places for qualified doctors.
Resident doctors move into these in their third year of training.
In 2025, there were more than 30,000 applicants for 10,000 of these jobs – some from abroad.
“Because there’s an inadequate number of training posts it means that lots of doctors are not able to get into training, and that’s me, I’m stuck,” said Liam Miller, a doctor on the picket line outside the Royal Stoke Hospital.
“As a result of that, I’m not able to progress in my career, I’m unemployed as of August next year… it’s most likely going to be a very precarious short term contract.
“We need the jobs so we can progress, so we can have that security, but patients need these jobs to come through as well, so that we can have the service we need.”
The government’s latest offer promised to accelerate the expansion of specialist training posts.
The government said it would increase the number of posts by 4,000 by 2028 – with the first 1,000 available from 2026.