PLAB and UKMLA

Quick answer: PLAB is still here and if you’re an international medical graduate it’s still the exam you take.

This article used to say that the GMC would replace PLAB with the UKMLA in 2024 or 2025. That’s not what happened, and we’ve rewritten it to reflect where things actually stand. Here’s the current position from the GMC.

What is the MLA?

The Medical Licensing Assessment, or MLA, is the standard the GMC now applies to everyone joining the UK medical register. It’s not a single new exam that everybody sits. Rather, it’s a common set of requirements - one content map, one set of quality standards and one benchmark for what a doctor needs to know and do before they can practise in the UK.

How you meet that standard depends on where you trained. UK medical students meet it through two assessments built into their degree, the Applied Knowledge Test and the Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment. International medical graduates meet it through PLAB.

In the GMC’s own words: “International doctors who want to join the UK medical register will continue to take PLAB which is compliant with our MLA requirements.”

So what actually happened to PLAB?

PLAB was brought into line with the MLA requirements rather than scrapped. PLAB 2 became MLA-compliant on 17 May 2024 and PLAB 1 followed on 8 August 2024. Since then, every PLAB sitting has been an MLA-compliant exam.

The GMC puts it plainly: “PLAB is now compliant with the MLA requirements, though it will still be called PLAB for a while longer.”

The changes were mostly to how the exam is built and quality assured. As the GMC says, they “affect exam administrators rather than individual candidates”. You book PLAB 1 & PLAB 2, you sit PLAB 1 & PLAB 2 and your pass gets you onto the register in exactly the way it always did.

What changed for you

One thing genuinely did change is that the old PLAB blueprint has gone. PLAB is now built from the GMC’s MLA content map so that’s the document to work from.

Be careful which version you’re reading. There are two on the GMC website. The original applies to exams sat up to and including August 2026. An updated version applies from September 2026 onwards. If you’re booking a sitting this autumn or later make sure you’re preparing from the updated map.

What didn’t change

Almost everything else. PLAB 1 is still a three-hour written paper of 180 single-best-answer questions. PLAB 2 is still a practical exam of 16 stations, and it still only takes place at the GMC’s clinical assessment centres in Manchester.

You still get four attempts at each part. Your PLAB 1 pass is still valid for two years, counted from the date you sat the exam, and you still need your registration application approved within two years of passing PLAB 2. The fees are unchanged by the MLA and stand at £283 for PLAB 1 and £1,036 for PLAB 2 as of April 2026.

There’s no fixed pass mark and the GMC sets it for each sitting and publishes it alongside your result.

Do UK graduates now sit the same exam as me?

Not the same exam but they’re assessed to the same standard. UK students sit the AKT and CPSA as part of their medical degree. You sit PLAB. Both routes are built from the same content map and held to the same benchmark which was the point of the MLA in the first place.

What if you have a postgraduate qualification?

Nothing here affects you. If you’re using an acceptable postgraduate qualification such as MRCP, MRCS, MRCEM or FRCA to get GMC registered, that route is untouched by the MLA. You didn’t need PLAB before and you don’t need it now.

Will PLAB be renamed?

The GMC has said it intends to modernise the name later on. It hasn’t published a date and, until it does, the exam you book is called PLAB.

If you see a course, a question bank or a forum post promising to prepare you for “the new UKMLA exam” as though it were something separate from PLAB treat it with caution. There’s no separate exam for IMGs to sit.

In summary

PLAB hasn’t been replaced. It’s been updated to meet the MLA requirements and remains the route onto the GMC register for international medical graduates who are not using a postgraduate qualification. Prepare from the MLA content map, check you have the right version for your sitting date and book PLAB as normal.