Veterinary careers can change as people’s lives, priorities and interests evolve. Victoria Plimmer RVN, Wendy Hough MRCVS and Sara Jackson MRCVS share how flexibility, career diversification and a wider view of progression can help experienced professionals stay.

For a long time, the route through a veterinary career appeared fairly fixed. You qualified, worked in practice and gradually took on more responsibility. You might eventually move into a senior clinical or leadership role and continue along that path until retirement. Real lives rarely unfold quite so neatly.

People become parents or carers. Their health changes. They receive a neurodiversity diagnosis or go through grief, burnout or menopause. Financial needs and personal priorities shift. Sometimes, people simply reach a point where they want something different from their working life.

When a traditional veterinary career stops fitting, the available choices can seem stark: carry on regardless or walk away. That leaves little room to consider whether the career itself could change.

I spoke to three veterinary professionals who are passionate about opening up that conversation: Victoria Plimmer, an RVN with more than 20 years’ experience across clinical practice, education, quality improvement and business development; Wendy Hough, an experienced veterinary surgeon, former practice owner and veterinary leader who now supports practices through Vet2Vet Talent; and Sara Jackson, a veterinary surgeon and human factors consultant whose portfolio combines clinical work with teaching, coaching, leadership and dog welfare through Reflect to Rise.

Each has seen how veterinary professionals can continue contributing while shaping their work around real life.

“When people find themselves in practices where they feel valued, listened to and supported, they are far more likely to stay,”

Why experienced people leave

When someone leaves practice, there may be an assumption that they have lost their passion for veterinary work. Victoria often sees people who still care deeply but can no longer see a future for themselves in their current role. “They care so much, but they reach a point where they can no longer see themselves in that role,” she explains.

Wendy has seen the same thing through her work in veterinary recruitment. “More often, they leave because the environment they’re working in doesn’t allow them to enjoy or sustain the career they once felt passionate about.” Wendy sees recruitment and retention as closely linked. Bringing somebody into a practice is only part of the challenge; the environment they join will influence whether they stay. “When people find themselves in practices where they feel valued, listened to and supported, they are far more likely to stay,” she says.

The reasons are often layered. Workload, leadership, financial pressure, limited progression, emotional strain and workplace culture can all contribute. Life may also have changed while the structure of the job has stayed the same. Victoria describes many of these as “push factors”. Exhaustion, feeling undervalued or struggling to balance work with life can drive someone out before they have a clear idea of where they want to go next. Some of those departures could be prevented. A different working environment, greater flexibility or a change of role may give someone a reason to stay connected to the profession.

Making careers sustainable for the people in them

In veterinary medicine, sustainability is often discussed through the lens of environmental impact, clinical processes or business resilience. The wellbeing and longevity of the people doing the work belong in that conversation too. Victoria’s interest in sustainable careers grew from her own experience. Trying to conceive, experiencing miscarriages, pregnancy and eventually becoming a parent changed what she needed from her working life. “They made me realise that the career I’d built wasn’t necessarily designed to be sustainable for the life I wanted to live,” she says.

Parenthood was Victoria’s catalyst. For somebody else, it might be caring responsibilities, chronic illness, menopause, a new diagnosis or a shift in personal priorities. These experiences can change a person’s capacity or the type of work they want to do, without diminishing their commitment or the value they bring. “When experienced veterinary professionals leave, we don’t just lose individuals,” Victoria explains. “We lose years of knowledge, mentorship, compassion and leadership that are incredibly difficult to replace.”

For Sara, sustainability also means feeling content with her life as a whole and having space to pursue work she finds meaningful. “I feel at my best, thus sustained, when able to inspire veterinary professionals, students and dog owners,” she says. Workload and hours matter, but so do meaning, variety and the chance to make a difference in ways that feel personally worthwhile.

“The career I’d built wasn’t necessarily designed to be sustainable for the life I wanted to live.”

Flexibility as a retention strategy

Flexible working can still be viewed as a special arrangement granted reluctantly to someone who cannot manage a conventional role. Wendy sees it as a practical way to retain good people. Victoria agrees, “Flexibility shouldn’t be viewed as a concession,” she says. “It should be seen as a retention strategy.”

Victoria also describes flexibility as “an investment in retaining skilled professionals”. That flexibility could take the form of part-time work, job sharing, predictable hours, compressed weeks or a phased return following illness or parental leave. It could also allow someone to combine clinical work with teaching, mentoring, leadership or project responsibilities.

Flexibility should be seen as a retention strategy.”

Wendy has seen practices retain excellent team members through changes like these. She has also seen vets combine clinical work with leadership, mentoring, teaching or project-based responsibilities, allowing the practice to retain their experience while the individual develops a career that suits them better. The practices that manage this successfully tend to consider outcomes, individual strengths and how each person can contribute most effectively. Wendy has found that this approach can improve engagement, loyalty and team stability, while retaining professionals who might otherwise have left practice altogether. Every practice will have its own operational limits. Even so, there may be more scope to adapt a role than first appears.

Sara believes employers could actively support people to explore interests beyond their immediate job. A small paid role, project or voluntary opportunity can give someone room to develop while keeping their relationship with their existing workplace.

Wendy recommends beginning with curiosity and conversation. “My advice would be to start with curiosity and conversation rather than policy.” Regular conversations about workload, wellbeing, career aspirations and future plans can bring concerns to the surface before they become reasons to leave. Wendy suggests reviewing rota design, progression opportunities and the way individual contributions are recognised. “Not every positive change requires significant investment,” she explains. “Often it’s about being willing to have honest conversations and finding creative solutions.”

Every request may not be workable, but Wendy believes practices often discover more room for flexibility once managers and team members begin exploring the options together. One person may need predictable hours. Another may be looking for a route into leadership or an opportunity to develop a particular interest. Someone else may want to reduce their clinical hours while taking on teaching or mentoring work. The useful question is what would make this person’s career workable for longer.

Allowing a career to evolve

Leaving a traditional role does not have to mean severing all ties with clinical work or veterinary medicine. A portfolio career allows someone to use their experience across several roles. Clinical work can sit alongside education, consultancy, writing, mentoring, research, coaching, leadership, quality improvement or work with professional organisations.

Sara’s portfolio developed over time. She had already begun thinking about different career strands when she was made redundant. That experience gave her reason to consider which parts of her work mattered most and where she wanted to develop further. Her previous role covered a wide remit, but she wanted more “stretch and challenge” in particular areas. She now works clinically two days a week, alongside roles involving human factors, communication, leadership, teaching, coaching and dog welfare. She also volunteers as a Pets as Therapy trustee, a Vetlife ambassador and breed health coordinator for the Sussex Spaniel.

Clinical practice keeps her consultancy and teaching grounded in the realities veterinary teams face. Her other work, in turn, can renew the energy she takes back into practice. “I recently spent five days teaching, which filled me with such happiness and satisfaction that I felt great going back into my clinical work,” she explains.

For some people, diversification may provide the balance that makes continued clinical work possible.

Seeing the value in familiar skills

“What skills have you developed?”

Veterinary experience can be applied far beyond the role in which it was first developed. “As veterinary professionals, we develop an incredible range of transferable skills, but we often only think about applying them within more traditional roles,” Victoria explains.

Veterinary professionals communicate with people in highly emotional situations. They educate, reassure, build trust and solve problems under pressure. Many also lead teams, mentor colleagues and continually adapt their plans. Daily familiarity can make these abilities feel unremarkable. In another setting, they may be exactly what an employer, client or organisation needs. Victoria encourages people to shift the question from “What jobs could I do?” to “What skills have I developed?” That change can uncover possibilities hidden by conventional job titles.

Sara also experienced how closely professional identity can become tied to a particular role. Following her redundancy, she felt she had lost part of that identity. “I now have my identity back and am comfortable that a multi-portfolio career is still viable and gives me an identity within the profession,” she says.

A varied career can still have a clear sense of direction and professional purpose, even when no single job title captures all of it.

The realities of a portfolio career

Portfolio careers bring their own pressures. Sara values the flexibility, variety and collaboration her work gives her. She can choose her direction and make time for voluntary causes that matter to her.

Managing several roles also means “spinning so many plates”. There are multiple deadlines to track, potential diary clashes and less certainty around income. Boundaries can become difficult when many of the opportunities are interesting or personally meaningful. Sara admits that she does not always recognise when she has taken on too much. Trusted friends and family help her pause before committing to something else.

Long-term sustainability depends partly on deciding which opportunities genuinely belong in the portfolio and which ones need to be declined.

Starting with one small step

The thought of finding an entirely new career can feel overwhelming, especially when someone is already exhausted. Victoria suggests first working out which part of the current situation is causing the difficulty. It could be the work, the hours, the workplace, the pace, the culture or limited opportunities to progress. In other cases, life has changed and the role has failed to change with it.

Once the source of the problem is clearer, the next step may be relatively small: changing practice, reducing hours, asking for support or exploring another interest alongside an existing role. A larger career move can remain an option if that is where the process eventually leads. Sara suggests identifying a personal “passion point” alongside a “pain point” within the profession. Looking for a connection between them can provide a starting point for a project, voluntary position or new area of development.

Build your network

Conversation helps too. “Build your network – not in the intimidating, business sense of the word, but simply by having conversations,” Victoria says. “Ask people about their careers, how they got to where they are, what challenges they’ve faced and what opportunities they discovered along the way.” Hearing how other people have shaped their careers can reveal routes that are difficult to see from inside one workplace or part of the profession.

A place for honest career conversations

These conversations are the reason Victoria created the new Real Veterinary Networking Group on PeerVet.

The group gives veterinary professionals a dedicated place to discuss career sustainability, flexibility and the different ways their knowledge and experience can be used. Members can ask questions, exchange ideas and learn from people whose careers have taken very different routes. Victoria has also launched a free Real Veterinary Networking resource to help you consider what career sustainability means for you and where your skills, interests and experience could lead.

Accessing the resource also gives you entry to the community, where you can continue the conversation and share what comes up through your reflections. You can create a free PeerVet account to access the resource and group. If you prefer to keep your full name private within the community, you can choose a username.

Join the Real Veterinary Networking Group on PeerVet

What would make your career sustainable?

Sara questions the constant pressure to pursue the next achievement. She believes there should also be room to recognise contentment, celebrate what has already been achieved and enjoy where we are. Victoria imagines career sustainability being valued as highly as clinical excellence. Wendy wants practices to recognise individual differences and work with people to find arrangements that serve both the person and the business.

Retaining experienced veterinary professionals may require a wider view of what remaining in the profession can look like. Victoria sums it up with one question:

“How do we help people build careers they want to stay in?”

Thank you to our contributors

Victoria Plimmer RVN
Victoria is a Registered Veterinary Nurse with more than 20 years’ experience. Her career has combined hands-on clinical practice with education, quality improvement and business development.

Through Victoria Plimmer Consultancy, she works with veterinary teams and the wider profession to improve anaesthesia, clinical workflows and sustainability. She helps practices develop safer systems, more efficient ways of working and environments that support both patient care and team wellbeing.

Victoria takes a broad view of sustainability, encompassing people, patients, practices and the planet. Her work increasingly includes conversations around retaining experienced professionals and creating spaces where people can connect, exchange ideas and build careers that can evolve alongside their lives.

Wendy Hough
Wendy is a veterinary surgeon with more than 20 years’ experience across mixed, equine, first-opinion, referral and small-animal practice in the UK and overseas. In 2009, she and her husband transformed a former retail site into an independent small-animal practice, which continues to thrive.

Over the past decade, Wendy’s career has moved towards leadership, practice management and operations. She has worked as both a clinical director and area director, leading veterinary teams through change and integration.

As the founder of Vet2Vet Talent, Wendy combines clinical insight and operational experience to support practices with recruitment, talent management and business improvement. Her practical, collaborative approach helps practices strengthen their teams, improve workflows and build positive, sustainable workplace cultures.

Sara Jackson
Becoming a veterinary surgeon was always Sara’s ambition, despite initially being told she was not good enough to pursue it. She entered veterinary school at 27, having already completed a zoology degree and a PhD researching air-scenting in dogs.

Sara spent six years in general practice followed by eight years in emergency and critical care, where she gained Advanced Practitioner status and progressed into senior leadership. She now works clinically two days a week alongside a varied portfolio centred around human factors, communication, leadership and dog welfare.

Her associate roles include work with BVA Great Veterinary Workplaces, VetLed, the Veterinary Management Group and the Veterinary Taskforce. Through these roles, she teaches, coaches, creates educational content and speaks at veterinary conferences. She is also a Pets as Therapy trustee, a Vetlife ambassador and breed health coordinator for the Sussex Spaniel.

Through Reflect to Rise, Sara supports individuals, teams and organisations following errors or perceived errors, helping them understand the wider systems involved and recover through coaching and reflective discussion. She also helps teams develop through job crafting and strengths-based working, and supports veterinary professionals with difficult or emotionally charged client conversations concerning conformation, chronic conditions and animal welfare.