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PLAB vs UKMLA: what is actually changing, and when
The Core Revision Team
Written with the IMG Hub · 8 min read
Published 11 July 2026 · Checked against sources current July 2026
Every few months the same rumour sweeps the IMG forums: PLAB is being scrapped, the UKMLA is replacing it, and anyone booking now is sitting a doomed exam — better to wait. The rumour contains a grain of truth wrapped in a great deal of confusion, and the confusion is costing people time they cannot get back. Here is what has actually changed, what has not, and why the only sensible response is to carry on exactly as planned.
Core Lens
PLAB and the UKMLA in five points
- PLAB has not been replaced. Since 2024 its questions have mapped to the Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA) content map, and the GMC says the exam keeps the PLAB name for a while yet.
- Format and level unchanged. PLAB 1 is still a three-hour, 180-question exam on paper and PLAB 2 a 16-station OSCE in Manchester, both set at the level of a doctor entering F2.
- A timetable change for 2027. For 2027 the GMC has said the February PLAB 1 sitting will run only in UK and EU centres, leaving overseas centres three sittings that year.
- Waiting has costs. IELTS and OET results stay valid for two years, and in April 2026 the GMC’s fees rose to £283 for PLAB 1 and £1,036 for PLAB 2.
- Before you book. Revise against the latest MLA content map from gmc-uk.org, and check dates and fees in your own GMC Online account, not on forums.
Figures checked against the GMC’s own pages on 28 September 2026; the Deep Dive has the detail and the sources.
You are reading the Core Lens — the points that matter. Open the Deep Dive for the full article.
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PLAB has not been replaced and is not about to vanish. Since 2024 it has been MLA-compliant: its questions map to the MLA content map, the same framework UK medical students are assessed against. The GMC says the exam “will still be called PLAB for a while longer”. There is nothing to wait for.
Layer one: what actually happened in 2024
The MLA — the Medical Licensing Assessment — is the framework UK medical students are assessed against. Since 2024, PLAB questions map to the MLA content map: the same framework, applied to international graduates. That is why the GMC describes the two parts in MLA language — PLAB 1 is formally an Applied Knowledge Test and PLAB 2 a Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment — and it is why “PLAB vs UKMLA” is a slightly false contest. You are not choosing between two exams, and one is not waiting to ambush the other. PLAB is the MLA-compliant assessment for international graduates, and it already happened, quietly, two years ago.
The standard did not move when the framework did: both parts remain pitched at the level of a doctor entering F2, testing common, important and acute presentations and long-term condition management, against current UK best practice rather than local practice. The complete PLAB guide covers what that benchmark means in full.
For candidates, the compliance is quietly reassuring rather than threatening. It means the target you are revising towards is the same one every UK final-year student is revising towards — a published, public framework — rather than a separate, opaque “exam for foreigners” whose content you have to reverse-engineer from forum folklore. The framework changed around the exam; the exam you sit did not become a different animal.
Layer two: the content map is a live document
You will see confident posts claiming that a “new” content map takes effect on some specific date, and that the exam will transform when it does. Treat those claims with care. The MLA content map is a live document — the GMC updates it — so the right habit is simply to check the current map on gmc-uk.org when you book, the same way you would check the current fee. An updated map is a revision-planning detail, not a different exam; the framework, the F2 benchmark and the format carry on regardless.
Layer three: the name
The GMC’s own wording is that the exam “will still be called PLAB for a while longer”. That phrase does a lot of honest work: it concedes that the name may eventually change while telling you, plainly, that nothing hangs on it. Your booking pages say PLAB. Your result will say PLAB. If the badge on the door is ever repainted, the assessment behind it — MLA content map, F2 standard — is the one described here. Waiting for a rebrand is waiting for nothing.
Why the rumour refuses to die
Three honest reasons. First, the names invite it: “PLAB” and “UKMLA” sound like competing exams, so every mention of the MLA reads, to a worried skimmer, like an obituary for PLAB. Second, the content map genuinely does get updated — and each update ripples through secondary sites as “PLAB is changing”, which is technically true and practically misleading. Third, coaching channels and agencies have an incentive to make the ground feel like it is moving: urgency sells courses. The antidote to all three is the same boring habit — when a claim about the exam matters to your plans, check it against the GMC’s own PLAB pages before you act on it, because that is where every claim in this article comes from.
- What changed (2024)
- PLAB became MLA-compliant — questions map to the MLA content map, the framework UK medical students are assessed against.
- Unchanged: format
- PLAB 1 is still 180 single-best-answer questions over 3 hours — and still paper-based, whatever the forums say. PLAB 2 is still 16 OSCE stations of 8 minutes each, sat in Manchester.
- Unchanged: standard
- Both parts pitched at a doctor entering F2, against current UK best practice.
- Unchanged: rhythm
- PLAB 1 still runs four times a year — February, May, August and November (the February 2027 sitting is UK/EU only, so overseas centres run three that year) — booked through your own GMC Online account; PLAB 2 runs throughout the year once you hold a part one pass.
- Unchanged: the name
- Still PLAB, “for a while longer” in the GMC’s words.
What this means for your preparation
Treat the MLA content map as your syllabus
The content map is public, free and precise about what the exam samples — which makes it the rare exam document worth reading before any textbook. Because it is a live document, download the current version from gmc-uk.org when you book rather than working from a copy someone shared last year.
MLA-aligned resources are the right resources
The alignment is quietly good news for IMGs: because UK students are assessed against the same framework, anything built to the MLA content map is pointing at your target too. The layer to add deliberately is current UK best practice — the exam assumes UK guidance and UK-standard equipment, not the norms of the system you trained in.
Book on facts, not forum dates
Sitting dates, centre lists and fees live in one place: your own GMC Online account, under “My Tests”, which opens to you once your English evidence is verified. Screenshots of “confirmed 2026 dates” circulating in groups are exactly the kind of secondary claim this article exists to warn you off.
There is no cleaner, newer PLAB coming that rewards patience — but waiting spends real things. Your English evidence is valid for two years. Once you sit PLAB 1, you have two years from that sitting date to pass PLAB 2. Fees moved the wrong way in April 2026 — PLAB 1 rose from £273 to £283 and PLAB 2 from £998 to £1,036 — and waiting rarely gets cheaper. And the direction of travel in UK recruitment since the Prioritisation Act rewards doctors who are in the NHS sooner, not later. If PLAB is your route, the rumour mill’s advice to “wait and see” is, concretely, advice to fall behind.
Where this leaves you
Exactly where you were before you read the rumour, but calmer: preparing for a stable, published, F2-benchmark exam whose content framework you can download today. If you are starting from zero, the complete PLAB guide maps the whole journey in order; if you are ready for specifics, PLAB 1 explained and PLAB 2 explained take each part in turn. None of them will need rewriting when the name finally catches up with the framework.
We answer this question more than almost any other, and the answer never changes: the MLA transition already happened, it made PLAB more predictable rather than less, and the candidates it punishes are only the ones who postponed while waiting for it. Check the current content map when you book, prepare against UK practice, and let the name sort itself out.
The exam is only half the move
The IMG Hub is our free collection of guides, tools and videos for doctors joining the NHS — the jargon, the payslip, your first 90 days, and the exams. The UK layer the MLA content map assumes is exactly what it teaches.
Sources & the small print. GMC PLAB 1 and PLAB 2 guides; gmc-uk.org MLA and MLA content map pages; GMC fees and booking pages. General careers information, not immigration or legal advice — always check the GMC’s current PLAB and registration guidance, GMC Online and GOV.UK before acting. Core Revision is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the General Medical Council. Written by the Core Revision team.
