Specialty Certification Examination Running by Royal College of Physicians

Every Specialty Certificate Exam in one place: the two-paper format, how the pass mark is set, 2026 and 2027 dates, fees and attempt limits.

The Specialty Certificate Examinations are the knowledge-based assessments taken during higher specialty training in the UK physician specialties. They are run by the Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK, usually in partnership with the relevant specialist society, and passing one entitles you to a post-nominal naming the specialty, such as SCE (Neurology).

This page covers what is common to all of them, then the dates, fees and rules you need before you apply.

Which exams there are

The Federation's current schedule covers eleven specialty examinations, together with two European examinations it administers alongside them.

Two notes on that list. Nephrology and gastroenterology trainees sit the European examinations rather than a separate UK SCE in those specialties, and both are administered by the Federation on the same timetable and at a comparable fee. If you are in nephrology or gastroenterology, check your specialty's own page on the Federation site, since the arrangements for these two have changed over time.

The MRCP(UK) examinations are a different thing entirely. MRCP Part 1 and Part 2 come earlier, test general internal medicine, and are a prerequisite for entering higher specialty training rather than a part of it. If that is where you are, start with MRCP Part 1 and MRCP Part 2.

The format, which is the same for all of them

Three consequences worth drawing out.

Because nothing is deducted for a wrong answer, you should never leave a question unanswered. A guess has positive expected value and a blank has none.

Because there are 200 questions across six hours, you have a little under two minutes each. Most candidates who run short of time do so by returning repeatedly to questions they are unsure of. Flag, commit to an answer anyway, and move on.

Because the blueprint samples the whole curriculum, there is no area you can safely skip. The questions are designed to test interpretation and clinical problem-solving rather than recall, so a stem typically gives you a patient and asks you to decide something.

How the pass mark is set

The SCEs are criterion referenced. This is the point candidates most often misunderstand, so it is worth stating plainly: there is no fixed pass percentage, and there is no fixed proportion of candidates who pass or fail.

Instead, a panel judges the standard that a competent specialist should reach on each individual question, and the mark required to pass is derived from those judgements for the paper actually sat. One sitting can therefore have a slightly different pass mark from another without either being easier.

What this means in practice is that you cannot revise towards a target percentage, and comparing your score with a friend from a different sitting tells you very little. It also means that the areas you avoid matter more than the areas you enjoy, because a borderline result is usually produced by two or three genuinely weak topics rather than by mild weakness spread evenly.

Eligibility, attempts and when to sit

There are no prerequisites for entry to any Specialty Certificate Examination. You do not have to be at a particular stage, and you do not have to be in a UK training programme.

UK trainees normally sit in the penultimate year of higher specialty training. That timing is deliberate: late enough to have encountered the breadth of the specialty in clinical practice, and early enough that a resit does not delay certification.

Six attempts are permitted automatically. Beyond six, you must complete additional educational experience before each further attempt and submit supporting evidence endorsed by your educational supervisor and training programme director or equivalent. Note that failing to attend a sitting you have booked counts as an attempt, whereas a sitting cancelled by the Federation does not.

Candidates erased from the GMC register on fitness-to-practise grounds may not enter, and those under suspension may not enter until it is lifted. Warnings, interim orders, undertakings and conditions must be declared and are considered individually.

Dates for 2026 and 2027

Applications open and close at 8:00am UK time, and each window is four weeks. Missing the closing time by minutes means waiting for the next sitting, which for most specialties is nine months away, so put the opening date in your calendar rather than the closing one.

Additional sittings are occasionally arranged outside this schedule at relatively short notice, as has happened in rheumatology. If you are hoping to sit sooner than the table allows, check the Federation's news page as well as its dates page.

Fees

Transferring from a UK to an international centre after applying costs the 175 pound difference.

How to prepare, in general terms

The specialty guides linked below go into the high-yield topics for each exam. Three things hold across all of them.

Work from questions rather than from reading. Reading a specialty textbook produces recognition, which feels like knowledge right up to the moment you are given five plausible options and asked to choose. Best-of-five questions with full explanations are what convert recognition into discrimination.

Read the explanation for the options you rejected, not only for the one you chose. In most specialties the wrong options are answers that would be correct in an adjacent situation, and learning why they are wrong here is where the marks are.

Start with the topic you least want to revise. Given how the pass mark is set, the area you have been avoiding is the one most likely to decide a borderline result.

Clinical Tip: book the exam before you feel ready. The application window closes nine months before the next opportunity in most specialties, and candidates who wait until their revision feels complete routinely lose a year to a closing date rather than to a result.

Specialty guides

Respiratory Medicine SCE · Rheumatology SCE · Medical Oncology SCE · Neurology SCE · Acute Medicine SCE · Palliative Medicine SCE · ESENeph

Our question banks for every exam above are written in the exam format by a UK consultant, with explanations referenced to UK guidelines. Free sample questions are available without payment. Browse all question banks

Formats, dates, fees and attempt rules on this page are taken from the Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK, including its Specialty Certificate Examination regulations and its dates and fees schedule, as published in October 2026. Confirm all dates and fees on their site before applying.