Once qualified, veterinary nurses will find a rewarding career ahead of them whether that is in small animal, large or equine practice.

You may choose to develop an interest in different aspects of animal health, such as behaviour, or rehabilitation. There are a lot of courses available that are too numerous to mention on this page. The main thing is to ensure that the company providing the course is reputable and that the information you will learn will apply to your working day and interests.

The Royal College of veterinary surgeons (RCVS) have developed frameworks for post registration certificates and diplomas (https://www.rcvs.org.uk/lifelong-learning/postgraduate-qualifications/). There is a list of course providers who run a variety of courses in subjects such as anaesthesia or behaviour for registered veterinary nurses (RVNs) to complete.

There are also other courses that you can complete that are not accredited by the RCVS such as the Internation Society for Feline Medicine courses that focus on cats.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is mandatory for RVNs with 15 hours CPD being required by the RCVS per year. This CPD can be completed by attending a course on topics of interest, attending a veterinary nurse congress, webinars or in-person events. Completing CPD ensures that RVNs stay up to date with current best practice and that high standards of care are maintained by the profession.

RVNs may choose to embark on a career working in large veterinary hospitals, universities or specialist referral centres. Veterinary hospitals must have a member of staff on the premises over 24 hours. This means that VNs will need to sleep at the hospital and care for inpatients overnight.

Specialist referral centres focus on one or two aspects of veterinary care such as orthopaedic patients or dermatology patients. This allows VNs to concentrate on these topics and become more specialised in their care.

University practice may offer both first opinion cases and referral cases whilst training veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses. This role may include teaching students whilst working as an RVN and managing patients.

There are also companies that offer out-of-hours (OOH) services for local veterinary practices. This means that when the veterinary practice shuts for the evening, the OOH service will see any of their clients in an emergency setting and look after them over night until the practice opens again in the morning. Vets and VNs who work for OOH providers, focus on emergency and critical care patients working through the night rather than during the day.

VNs may take on a veterinary practice management role where they do less clinical work and help to manage the practice as a business. Veterinary nurses can also become owners of vet practices.

Pharmaceutical companies or pet food manufacturers will often employ VNs to become representatives; selling their products to veterinary practices.

Many RVNs also elect to follow a career in education and become college tutors and lecturers teaching the next generation of veterinary nurses. It can sometimes be challenging getting into teaching so offering to run client educational evenings, or run webinars with organisations such as BVNA will be useful experience to gain. Some colleges prefer VNs to teach practical handling skills to animal management or VN students.

Have a look on the VN Futures website to see the range of career pathways you can take: https://vnfutures.org.uk/our-activities/careers-in-veterinary-nursing/career-case-studies/

Veterinary nurses have a lot of transferable skills such as good communication, organisational and team working. This makes them valuable to a lot of companies and therefore there is no limit to what you can do if you want to move away from the veterinary industry. However, BVNA hope that you have a long and prosperous career in veterinary practice utilising your nursing skills to improve animal health and welfare.