NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme Preparation & Practice Tests (2026)

Our NHS Graduate Scheme PrepPack doesn’t replicate the NHS’s own assessments. Instead, it’s designed to help you build the underlying skills that may be tested at each stage of the scheme, from reasoning and situational judgement to interviews and group exercises, so you can approach every stage with confidence.

• 68 Aptitude & Reasoning Practice Sessions: Start with a diagnostic test that shows where to focus, then build your numerical, verbal, and logical reasoning across 37 practice sessions, from percentages and ratios to tables, graphs, and written passages. Also strengthen your critical reasoning with 30 exercises on inferences, assumptions, deduction, interpretation, and arguments, including full-length simulations.
• 2 Situational Judgement Tests: Practise choosing the most appropriate response to realistic workplace dilemmas.
• 3 Interview Preparation Materials: Get ready for video answers and interviews with a preparation video, an interview guide, and a guide to the most common questions.
• 19 Study Guides & Video Tutorials: Learn the techniques step by step, from arithmetic refreshers to table and graph analysis.
• 4 Personality Questionnaires & Guides: Understand your own working style and motivations.
• FREE - 26 Assessment Centre Preparation Materials: Practise the kinds of exercises assessment centres often use, with 2 case studies, 2 in-tray exercises, and 7 group and role play exercises, supported by 15 guides, model presentations, scoring forms, and worked solutions.

In total, you get 1,500+ practice questions to prepare with, and your progress is tracked as you go, so you can see where to focus next.

The NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme gives graduates a structured, paid way into NHS leadership, with no clinical background required.

You’re employed on a fixed-term contract and learn on the job. Placements at NHS organisations across England give you hands-on experience, and you work on real projects that improve services and support staff.

Alongside this, a funded postgraduate qualification builds the knowledge behind your practice, so that, at the end of the scheme, you can apply for management roles.

Selection looks at your potential as well as your achievements

Here’s what to expect at each of the four application stages:

After the assessment centre, successful candidates are matched to available NHS placements, using their assessment scores and stated preferences.

There are five specialisms to choose from, and most take two years, while Finance and Engineering & Estates Management take two and a half.

Here’s what each one involves:

• General Management: You’ll gain experience across operational management, strategy, transformation, and service improvement, so you can lead teams and help shape how healthcare is delivered.
• Finance: You’ll develop professional finance expertise while helping NHS organisations make the best use of their resources, building a strong foundation for a career in NHS financial management.
• Human Resources: You’ll build expertise in workforce planning and organisational development, with a route to a CIPD-accredited qualification along the way.
• Digital Health Informatics: You’ll use data and digital technology to improve how NHS services work and how teams use information.
• Engineering & Estates Management: You’ll develop technical and leadership skills across hospital infrastructure, engineering systems, and major capital projects that keep patient care safe and effective.

Throughout, you’re supported by placement managers, programme managers, education support, and trainee buddies, so you’re never working things out alone.

For General Management, Human Resources, Finance, and Digital Health Informatics, you need at least a 2:2 degree in any subject, so your degree doesn’t have to be in health or management. A postgraduate qualification, such as an MBA, Master’s, or PhD, or a health or management qualification at degree level, also meets the requirement.

You don’t need any work experience, but you do need the right to work in the UK for the full length of the scheme.

Finance and Digital Health Informatics have no set numeracy requirement, though the NHS recommends showing numerate ability, for example, through a numerate degree subject.

Engineering and Estates Management has stricter requirements: You’ll need at least a 2:2 in mechanical, electrical, or building services engineering, from a course accredited by the Engineering Council. An MEng (Hons), whether taken as a four-year course or as a BEng plus Master’s, isn’t accepted for this specialism.

If you don’t have a degree, the NHS accepts certain health and management qualifications at degree level, such as:

• NVQ Level 5 in Management
• Diploma in Management Studies (DMS)
• Diploma in Nursing, Midwifery or Health Visiting (Dip HE Nursing)
• Diploma in Social Work (DSW) or Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW)

A Certificate in Management Studies, or a DipHE in any subject other than those above, isn’t accepted. The NHS’s full entry requirements list every accepted qualification.

Founded in 1992, JobTestPrep has over thirty years of experience helping candidates navigate competitive recruitment processes, including those taking the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme Tests. We offer over 220 expert-developed preparation courses, and have supported over a million job-seekers worldwide. In addition to our professionally designed PrepPacks, we also offer advanced AI-powered tools like our CV Analyser and our Interview Prep and Adaptive Learning systems. Together, these resources help candidates across the UK and beyond strengthen their applications, improve their performance, and achieve outstanding results.