1. Almost four in ten nurses in Spain say they intend to leave the profession within the next ten years, and 17% say they’ll be gone within just two.
  2. That finding comes from the largest nursing workforce study ever conducted in Spain: more than 20,000 responses, led jointly by the Ministry of Health and the Carlos III Health Institute, published in the Journal of Nursing Management.
  3. This isn’t a “projection” built on demographic modeling.
  4. It’s what Spanish nurses are directly telling their own government right now.

Spain’s nurse-to-population ratio sits at 6.3 per 1,000, well below the EU average of 8.5, and the Ministry’s own estimate says closing that gap requires 100,000 additional nurses — a shortfall that, at the country’s current growth rate, would take 22 to 29 years to close even before accounting for the 39.4% who say they want to leave.

The evidence points overwhelmingly toward retention, not simple headcount growth, as the more urgent and more current framing:

Spain has actually grown its nursing workforce steadily since 2014, but a structural intention-to-leave crisis is emerging on top of that growth, not despite it.

Below are the 20 nurse retention statistics for Spain that matter most in 2026, sourced directly from the Ministry of Health, ISCIII, and INE.

Nurse Retention Statistics Spain at a Glance

  1. 39.4–39.6% — nurses who intend to leave the profession within the next 10 years, per the Ministry of Health/ISCIII national study of over 20,000 respondents
  2. 17% — the subset who expect to leave within just two years
  3. 345,969 — total nurses registered in Spain, per Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE)
  4. 6.3 — nurses per 1,000 population in Spain, versus an EU average of 8.5
  5. 100,000 — additional nurses the Ministry of Health says Spain needs to reach the EU average ratio
  6. 22 to 29 years — estimated time to close that gap at Spain’s current workforce growth rate
  7. 81% — increased risk of intending to leave among nurses who perceive poor patient safety in their workplace
  8. 33% — increased risk of intending to leave associated with holding a temporary employment contract
  9. 34.5% — share of specialist nurses actually working within their specialty field
  10. 60% — nurses who admit to omitting necessary patient care due to lack of time

Nurse Retention Statistics Spain: The National Intention-to-Leave Study

  1. Spain’s Ministry of Health and the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) conducted the largest nursing workforce study in the country’s history, surveying over 20,000 nurses (with the Ministry’s own press materials citing a related survey of more than 55,000) and publishing the peer-reviewed results in the Journal of Nursing Management.
  2. 39.6% of surveyed nurses said they intend to leave the profession within the next 10 years, and 17% expect to leave within just two years — figures the Ministry of Health cites directly in its own official communications, not just the peer-reviewed publication.
  3. 56.5% of nurses who want to quit the profession cite lack of job stability as their main reason, ahead of limited professional recognition and inadequate working conditions as secondary factors.
  4. Temporary employment contracts increase the statistical likelihood of intending to leave by 33%, while perceiving poor patient safety in the workplace increases that likelihood by 81% — the single largest individual risk factor identified in the study.
  5. 60% of surveyed nurses admit to regularly omitting necessary patient care specifically due to lack of time — a direct, self-reported measure connecting unders-taffing to compromised care quality, not just nurse dissatisfaction in the abstract.

Nurse Retention Statistics Spain: The Specialty Mismatch

  1. Only 34.5% of Spain’s specialist nurses actually work within their specialty field, a mismatch the national study explicitly links to professional dissatisfaction and, by extension, intention to leave.
  2. As of November 2023, Spain had 46,114 registered specialist nurses across seven recognized specialties: midwifery, mental health, occupational health, pediatric, geriatric, family and community, and medical-surgical nursing — though the medical-surgical specialty was never fully developed nationally.
  3. Recognition and salary treatment of these specialties varies enormously by autonomous community. Midwifery and mental health nursing are recognized with a salary increase in nearly all regions, but geriatric nursing specifically lacks a defined professional category in Andalusia, Cantabria, Ceuta, Galicia, Melilla, and the Basque Country — meaning a geriatric specialist nurse in some regions receives no formal recognition or pay differential for that training at all.
  4. Even where a specialty is formally recognized, it doesn’t always carry a pay increase. In the Canary Islands and Murcia, several specialist categories are recognized on paper but confer no salary uplift — a structural disincentive to actually practicing within one’s trained specialty

Nurse Retention Statistics Spain: Regional Inequality

  1. Nurses in Madrid, the Canary Islands, Galicia, and the Balearic Islands show more than double the likelihood of intending to leave compared to nurses in Navarra, a gap the study’s authors attribute to differences in working conditions and health system organization rather than random variation.
  2. Navarra has both the highest hospital-nursing density in the country (6.03 per 1,000 population) and among the lowest intention-to-leave rates — a correlation the underlying data suggests is not coincidental, though the study stops short of claiming direct causation.
  3. Nationally, 83.7% of nursing employment contracts in 2023 were signed by professionals who remained within their home autonomous community, but 4,257 contracts specifically involved nurses relocating to a different region.
  4. Catalonia is the largest net receiver of relocating nurses, with a positive balance of 3,880 contracts in 2023, followed by Madrid (+1,423), Navarra (+1,027), and the Basque Country (+1,001) — while Andalusia (-1,937), Castilla-La Mancha (-1,129), and Castilla y León (-679) are the largest net exporters.
  5. Minimum monthly nursing salaries vary by more than €1,600 across regions: the Canary Islands offers the highest minimum (€3,318/month for primary care), while Cantabria offers among the lowest (€1,647/month for hospital care) — a gap large enough to plausibly explain part of the interregional migration pattern documented above.

Nurse Retention Statistics Spain: Workforce Growth Versus the Emerging Gap

  1. Spain’s nursing workforce has grown substantially since 2014: up 11% in primary care, 36.9% in emergency services, and 27.2% in hospital settings between 2014 and 2022 — genuine, multi-year growth across every major care setting tracked.
  2. The number of hospital nurses per 1,000 population rose from 3.21 in 2014 to 3.97 in 2022, with the sharpest single jump occurring between 2020 and 2021, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic response.
  3. Despite this growth, Spain’s overall nurse-to-population ratio of 6.3 per 1,000 remains well below the EU average of 8.5, and hospital-specific nursing density varies sharply by region: Navarra (6.03), Aragón (4.55), Asturias (4.54), and the Basque Country (4.53) lead, while Andalusia (3.03) and the Valencian Community (3.18) trail furthest behind.
  4. 53% of Spain’s 345,969 registered nurses are under age 44, and 85.5% are women — a workforce that is comparatively young nationally, which makes the near-40% ten-year intention-to-leave figure especially significant, since it implies a large share of that departure risk sits within an otherwise early-to-mid-career cohort rather than being concentrated near retirement age.

Why Nurse Retention Statistics in Spain Point to Different Timeframes

Spain’s nursing workforce data doesn’t actually conflict — it describes two different, compatible realities operating on different timelines:

  • Historical headcount growth (INE, Ministry of Health) shows real, multi-year expansion across every care setting since 2014, confirming Spain has not failed to grow its nursing workforce in absolute terms.
  • Forward-looking intention-to-leave data (the ISCIII/Journal of Nursing Management study) captures a distinct, emerging risk that headcount growth alone doesn’t offset: nearly 4 in 10 currently employed nurses say they plan to leave the profession within a decade, and structural drivers behind that intention — job insecurity, patient-safety perception, specialty mismatch — are measurable and specific, not vague dissatisfaction.
  • The EU-ratio gap (6.3 versus 8.5 per 1,000) is a separate, structural shortfall that exists independently of the intention-to-leave findings — even if the 39.4% who want to leave stayed in the profession indefinitely, Spain would still need 100,000 additional nurses just to match the EU average.

Reading only the historical growth numbers would miss the emerging retention risk entirely; reading only the intention-to-leave figures without the growth context would understate how much progress Spain has already made in absolute headcount terms.

What the Evidence Says Would Help

  • Reduce reliance on temporary contracts specifically, since holding one measurably increases intention-to-leave risk by 33% — a fixable, structural policy lever distinct from broader compensation reform.
  • Formalize specialist-nurse categories and pay differentials uniformly across all autonomous communities. With specialty recognition and salary treatment varying so widely by region, standardizing this nationally could directly address the 34.5% specialty-practice mismatch the study links to dissatisfaction.
  • Investigate what Navarra is doing differently. With the highest hospital-nursing density and among the lowest intention-to-leave rates nationally, Navarra’s specific working-condition and organizational practices are worth direct study as a domestic benchmark, rather than only looking to other EU countries for comparison.
  • Address patient-safety perception directly, not just staffing numbers. Since perceived poor patient safety carries the single largest individual risk factor for intention to leave (81% increased likelihood), interventions that improve nurses’ confidence in care quality — not just headcount — may have outsized retention impact.
  • Target the regional pay and working-hours gap. With minimum salaries varying by more than €1,600 monthly and standard working hours ranging from 35 to 37.5 hours weekly depending on region, harmonizing these structural conditions could reduce the interregional migration currently draining nurses from Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, and Castilla y León toward Catalonia and Madrid.

Job insecurity, workload, and patient-safety concerns are documented, government-verified drivers of Spain’s nurse retention crisis, not abstract complaints — the Ministry of Health’s own national study directly links these factors to intention-to-leave rates approaching 40%.

Employer-led staffing reform, contract stability, and licensed clinical mental health support remain the primary tools for addressing burnout tied to this kind of structural strain. Some hospitals report that complementary, non-clinical wellbeing resources — such as Ne Ste Al Frequency Therapy sessions offered remotely alongside existing staff support programs — can play a supportive role for nurses experiencing stress and burnout symptoms; many nurses and clients who use these sessions describe a noticeable shift in how they feel, though individual experiences vary and no specific outcome is guaranteed.

Ne Ste Al does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical or psychiatric condition; anyone experiencing burnout or clinical symptoms should consult a licensed healthcare provider first, and any wellbeing program a hospital adopts should be built around licensed, evidence-based care as its foundation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many nurses in Spain want to leave the profession?

According to the largest nursing workforce study ever conducted in Spain, led by the Ministry of Health and the Carlos III Health Institute, with over 20,000 respondents — 39.4% to 39.6% of nurses intend to leave the profession within the next 10 years, and 17% expect to leave within just two years.

Why do Spanish nurses want to leave their profession?

The Ministry of Health’s national study identifies job insecurity as the leading factor, cited by 56.5% of nurses who want to quit, followed by limited professional recognition and inadequate working conditions. Statistically, temporary contracts increase the likelihood of intending to leave by 33%, and perceiving poor patient safety increases it by 81%.

Does Spain have enough nurses compared to other European countries?

No. Spain’s nurse-to-population ratio is 6.3 per 1,000, compared to an EU average of 8.5. The Ministry of Health estimates Spain needs 100,000 additional nurses to close this gap, which at current growth rates would take between 22 and 29 years.

Which parts of Spain have the biggest nurse retention problems?

Madrid, the Canary Islands, Galicia, and the Balearic Islands show more than double the intention-to-leave rate compared to Navarra, which has both the highest hospital-nursing density and among the lowest intention-to-leave rates in the country.

Is Spain's nursing workforce actually growing?

Yes, substantially. Between 2014 and 2022, the nursing workforce grew 11% in primary care, 36.9% in emergency services, and 27.2% in hospital settings. However, this growth coexists with the emerging intention-to-leave risk documented in the 2024-2025 national study, meaning headcount growth alone has not resolved Spain’s retention concerns.

Related

Nurse Turnover in U.S. Hospitals: Causes, Costs, and Solutions (2026)
Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea 2026
Nurse Shortage Statistics Germany 2026
Nurse Shortage Statistics Switzerland 2026

Sources

Share this story

Ne Ste Al Team

gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==

Built by Gaple and Petri after a decade spent solving the same retention problem hospitals face now — inside a 70-person, £25M sales organization where even top performers arrived Monday already looking for a reason to quit. That work became Frequency Therapy, adapted for hospital nursing teams.

Ready to Move From Understanding to Action?

If you're evaluating ways to reduce nurse burnout and turnover, see how Ne Ste AI uses Frequency Therapy to help nurses shift toward the states they need.

Prefer to test it with your own nurses?

Related Posts