A second round of recruitment ended on Wednesday and of the 13,624 UK graduates, who cost the taxpayer 250,000 pounds each to put through medical school, 3,687 have not been awarded posts to allow them to train towards becoming a consultant or General Physician.

Some may yet be allocated a post in one of the less popular specialties such as trauma, orthopaedics and psychiatry, and an extra 1,50 short-term posts that have not yet been allocated. But most face a choice between taking a non-training job, leaving medicine or practicing abroad.

According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, the majority of unsuccessful candidates in the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) qualified from medical schools outside Europe, with 7,000 out of 10,000 being unsuccessful.

A combination of an increase in the number of non-UK medical students applying for places and a reduction in the number of places available in real terms means some newly qualified doctors may find themselves unemployed.

The MTAS scheme was abandoned earlier this year amid claims that it disadvantaged the best candidates, and a review has recommended sweeping changes in the coming years.

Officials have said without the thousands of applicants from outside Europe, most of whom were from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, there would not have been such over subscription for training places.