Nurse Registration in the UK from Nigeria: the NMC Route

Nurses who trained in Nigeria register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) through its process for applicants trained outside the UK. The NMC’s own eligibility checklist generates a personalised list of the evidence an application needs; the process as the NMC describes it covers qualification and registration details (evaluated against UK standards), English language evidence, health and character declarations, a face-to-face identity check, and the two-part Test of Competence.

The Test of Competence has two parts: a Computer-Based Test (CBT) of theoretical knowledge, taken online in the applicant’s own country — so the CBT can be sat from Nigeria — and an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), taken in the UK, which most applicants sit after arriving to take up a post. Each part carries its own fee, paid to the test provider; the NMC also charges a qualification evaluation fee at the start of the process and a registration fee on the final application. Registration concludes with an NMC PIN, whose status is checkable on the online register.

Employment is the other half of the route. Working in the UK as a nurse from Nigeria generally means the Health and Care Worker visa, which requires a confirmed job offer and a certificate of sponsorship from a UK employer approved by the Home Office — that is, an employer holding a sponsor licence. The Home Office publishes the register of licensed sponsors, so whether a prospective employer can actually sponsor is a checkable fact rather than a promise. Health and Care Worker visa holders — and their partners and children applying as dependants — do not pay the immigration health surcharge, and the visa can last up to five years before it needs extending.

Two cautions the primary sources support. Fee amounts and test requirements change: the figures on any third-party site — this page included — are only as current as their verification date, and the NMC’s published schedule is the number that binds. And no agent, employer or adviser can promise a registration or visa outcome: every stage is decided by the NMC or the Home Office against their published requirements.