Core Surgical Training CT1 portfolio 2027: grade checker and scoring guide

The Core Surgical Training portfolio carries no points and no published total: you choose a letter from A to E for each of six rows on an index page, grouped into four domains, and the panel uses those letters as a guide. Shortlisting runs on the MSRA alone, so the portfolio only counts once you’re among the roughly 1,200 candidates invited to interview, where the portfolio station is 45% of the final score. Applications are open from 10am on Thursday 22 October to 4pm on Thursday 19 November 2026, everything you list has to be achieved by that close, and the evidence itself goes up between 19 and 24 February 2027.

CST portfolio (index page and evidence, assessed at the interview portfolio station) points at a glance

2025/26 criteria (portfolio guidance page last reviewed 23 October 2025); 2027 domain descriptors not yet published · Last checked 10 October 2026

Each domain is graded on the best descriptor you can evidence. No points or total are published, so the grades below are the official wording only.

The portfolio is not used for shortlisting and has no published points. Shortlisting is on the MSRA: "This will form the basis of your shortlisting score." "Following the release of MRSA results approximately the top 1200 candidates will be invited to interview and upload evidence for the portfolio station." At interview: "Your total score will be a combination of MSRA (10%), portfolio station score (45%) and management and clinical station score (45%)." For 2027: "You will no longer be asked to complete self-assessment on Oriel. Instead, you will be asked to upload an index page with the appropriate entries for each domain (using a letter from A-E instead of a score)." The letter is a guide, not a score: "The score acts as a guide for assessors during the portfolio station ... Assessors will review the evidence, then ask candidates some questions about their portfolio and then allocate a final score". The station is marked 0-6 per element ("0 - No Evidence ... 6 - Outstanding"; portfolio station elements "Skills and knowledge" and "Presentation: Content, Presentation skills, Questioning"). No letter-to-points conversion and no domain weights are published.

CST: every domain, what scores and the maximum

Domain	What scores (official wording)	Max
Commitment to specialty: Operative experience	A Involvement in 40 or more cases B Involvement in 30-39 cases or more C Involvement in 20-29 cases D Involvement in 11-19 cases E Involved in 10 cases or less/no evidence Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. "Only 1 consolidation report upload is permitted. Please amalgamate all specialties onto one report and have this signed by a supervisor on every page."	A
Commitment to specialty: Surgical experience	A I have attended a surgical taster week (minimum 5 days, can be non-consecutive days) (see additional notes below) Or I have undertaken an elective in a surgical specialty as a medical student (minimum 4 weeks) B I have not undertaken a surgical taster/elective/surgical placement Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. Only two indicators (A or B). "Only one document should be uploaded for surgical experience/elective/placement or taster, if more than one is uploaded only the first letter will be reviewed by the assessor panel."	A
Quality Improvement / Clinical Audit	A I was involved as Lead in ALL aspects of a surgically themed clinical audit or QI project that has demonstrated change (such as second cycle/closed audit loop) B I was involved as Lead in ALL aspects of a clinical audit or QI project that has demonstrated change (such as second cycle/ closed audit loop) C I was involved as a contributor in a clinical audit or QI project that has demonstrated change (such as second cycle/ closed audit loop) D I was involved in a clinical audit or QI project E None/other Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. "Please choose a scoring option based on a single quality improvement QI project/audit."	A
Quality Improvement / Clinical Audit: Presentation	A Applicant presented both cycles of data or presented the intervention and change aspects of a project at a meeting B Applicant presented one cycle of the project at a meeting C Applicant did not present any aspect of the project Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. Only available if you were at least a contributor (A, B or C) in the QI/Audit domain. "A copy of the audit presentation must be provided to allow for presentation point scoring."	A
Presentations and publications	A I have won the top prize for delivering an oral presentation at a national or international medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being invited/selected to do so A I am first author (please see appendix for definition) of a PubMed-cited publication (or in press) not including a case report or editorial letter B I have delivered an oral presentation at a national or international medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being selected to do so B I am first author a prize-winning poster or oral poster presentations presented at an international or national medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being invited/selected to do so B I am first author of a PubMed-cited publication of a case report or editorial letter (or in press) Or I have written a book chapter related to medicine which has been published (not self-published) C I am a named co-author (please see appendix for definition) of one PubMed-cited publication (or in press) D I am first author for a poster or oral poster presentations presented at an international or national medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being invited/selected to do so D I have given an oral presentation at a regional medical meeting after being invited/selected to do so D I am a Cited Collaborative author (please see appendix for definition) as part of a research collaborative publication E None/other Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. "Points are not cumulative, please pick the option which you feel scores you the most points." "All events at which a presentation is made or journals to which an article is submitted must have an element of peer review."	A
Teaching experience	A I have worked with local educators to design and organise a face-to-face teaching programme (a series of sessions defined as 4 or more) to enhance organised teaching for healthcare professionals or medical students And I have delivered at least 4 sessions of that teaching B I have worked with local educators to design and organise a teaching programme (a series of sessions defined as 4 or more) to enhance organised teaching for healthcare professionals or medical students in an online format (please see appendix for definition of online) And I have delivered at least 4 sessions of that teaching C I have worked with local educators to design and organise a teaching programme (a series of sessions defined as 4 or more) to enhance organised teaching for healthcare professionals or medical students. I have delivered less than 4 sessions of that teaching D I have provided regular teaching for healthcare professionals or medical students over the last year (4 or more sessions/year) Or I have undertaken some educational activity focused on learning to teach E I have not provided teaching Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. One indicator only. The course and regular teaching sit in the same letter (D), so a course adds nothing for anyone who already teaches regularly.	A
Total		Not published

Dates for this round

• 21 October 2026, 5pm Advert appears source
• 22 October 2026, 10am Applications open source
• 19 November 2026, 4pm Applications close (achievements must be completed by now) source
• 5 January 2027 MSRA window source
• 16 February 2027 Invites to interview sent expected source
• 19 February 2027 Evidence upload portal opens (index page and portfolio) source
• 24 February 2027 Evidence upload portal closes source
• 1 March 2027 Interviews (portfolio station and management/clinical station) source
• 6 April 2027, 5pm Initial offers released expected source

What you can still add before 19 November 2026

What each of these adds is the difference between the option you would reach and the one you already hold, so it can be nothing if you hold that option already. The calculator works out the gain from your own answers.

• Commitment to specialty: Operative experience. Assist or perform supervised cases and log them on eLogbook (www.elogbook.org.uk); the consultant sign-off can be collected before the February upload. Start by 10 October 2026. Cases count only if done by application close, 4pm 19 Nov 2026 ("All achievements should be completed by close of applications."). Start now; each case counts as it is done.
• Commitment to specialty: Surgical experience. Complete a surgical taster of at least 5 days (non-consecutive allowed) and get a supervisor letter on letterhead with dates, hospital, GMC number and what you did. Start by 12 November 2026. Five working days (Thu 12, Fri 13, Mon 16, Tue 17, Wed 18 Nov) is the latest run that finishes before the 4pm 19 Nov 2026 close; arrange it with a department well before then.
• Quality Improvement / Clinical Audit: Presentation. If you were at least a contributor to a closed-loop project, present the cycle(s) at a departmental, governance or other meeting and get a letter or programme naming you as presenter. Start by 10 October 2026. The presentation must be given by 4pm 19 Nov 2026; book a slot at a departmental or governance meeting now.
• Presentations and publications. Deliver an oral at a national meeting (B), or a regional oral (D), after being selected. "All presentations require personal or virtual attendance". Start by 10 October 2026. The presentation must be delivered by 4pm 19 Nov 2026 ("All achievements should be completed by close of applications."); abstract deadlines for meetings before then are closing now.
• Teaching experience. Fastest route to A: with a local educator, design a 4+ session face-to-face programme and deliver 4 sessions, collecting participant feedback and a consultant letter. Route to D: a learning-to-teach course with a certificate, or regular teaching. Start by 22 October 2026. Four weekly sessions (22 Oct, 29 Oct, 5 Nov, 12 Nov) are the last comfortable run before the 4pm 19 Nov 2026 close; a one-day course just needs to be completed before the close.

Evidence traps

• A paid "2 day course" that is mostly self-study with about 6 hours online is unlikely to be accepted for the teaching domain. Be careful about including evidence from potentially disreputable sources – if you have been asked to pay money to present something at a meeting; or if you have paid for a “2 day course” which only has 6 hours of online activity over two days it is unlikely that the activity has been appropriately peer-reviewed. This makes it unlikely that we can award the points source
• If you paid a fee to present or show a poster, it scores as none/other. In situations where you are solely presenting or showing your poster because you have paid a fee to do so you may only select the "none/other" option. Please be wary of associations who offer this option as paying to present will not constitute a robust peer review process. source
• No index page means zero for the whole portfolio, and assessors only look at the first item of evidence in each domain. This is mandatory and candidates who fail to include the index sheet will score 0 for their portfolio evidence ... If too many items are uploaded, assessors will only assess the first item of evidence for each domain. source
• One achievement, one domain: an audit you presented under QI cannot be claimed again as a presentation. A specific achievement can be used to select one indicator in one domain only. ... Any points claimed for oral or poster presentations in this section must be completely different projects to any QI or audit work used to claim points in any other section. source
• Supervisor letters without a GMC number, editable e-signatures, or any patient-identifiable data score zero. Where evidence asks for a supervisor’s GMC number to be provided, it is mandatory to do so – evidence submitted without this will not be accepted by the interview panel and will score zero points source

Sources

• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgical Training Portfolio Guidance for Candidates (2025/26 CST CT1 and IST ST1 portfolio scoring guide), 2025/26; page last reviewed 23 October 2025, next review due 23 October 2027
• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgery Training, Applying (2027 recruitment), 2027 recruitment; page last reviewed 6 October 2026
• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgery Training, Recruitment timelines (Round 1, 2027), 2027 Round 1
• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgery Training, Interviews (2027), 2027 recruitment; page last reviewed 6 October 2026
• NHS England Medical Hub: Overview of Core Surgery Training CT1/ST1 (2027), 2027 recruitment; page last reviewed 5 October 2026
• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgical Training CT1 2027 person specification, 2027 recruitment
• Core Surgical Training Portfolio - Index Page (DOCX download from the portfolio guidance page), file last-modified 27 September 2024
• Examples of Portfolio Evidence (DOCX download from the portfolio guidance page), file last-modified 1 October 2024
• NHS England Medical Hub: 2025 competition ratios (Round 1), 2025 Round 1 (from screen/competition-ratios.json, not re-fetched)

Letters you can still move before the 19 November close

Nobody looks at CST evidence until February, but the cut-off is still the application close, because “All achievements should be completed by close of applications.” Operative experience is the steadiest row to improve: each assisted or supervised case counts once it’s logged on eLogbook, so reaching 30 cases lifts a C to B and reaching 40 lifts a B to A, and the consultant can sign the consolidation report later, before the upload. If you’ve no surgical experience yet, a taster of at least 5 days moves that row from B to A, and Thursday 12 to Wednesday 18 November is the latest run of five working days that finishes in time, so ask a department now. Anyone who contributed to a closed-loop audit but never presented it can gain in the presentation row by presenting a cycle at a departmental or governance meeting (C to B), or both cycles or the change (C to A). A selected oral at a national meeting takes presentations and publications to B, and a regional oral to D. In teaching, designing a face-to-face programme with a local educator and delivering four weekly sessions on 22 October, 29 October, 5 November and 12 November is the last comfortable route to A. A second audit cycle that shows change is unrealistic before the close unless the project is already well advanced.

Before you upload in February

Several CST rules bite at the upload rather than in the letter you choose: a missing index page scores 0 for the whole portfolio, assessors read only the first item in each domain, and a supervisor letter without a GMC number scores zero. Three 2025/26 changes still apply: foundation placements no longer count as surgical experience, ITU is no longer treated as a surgical specialty, and an audit or QI project must have been presented in the area where the change was being made.

Worked example: one FY2’s index page, row by row

Take a hypothetical FY2 with 25 assisted cases on a signed eLogbook consolidation sheet, a 4-week surgical elective from medical school, a contribution to a closed-loop audit with one cycle presented at a departmental meeting, a first-author poster at a national meeting, and 6 sessions of medical student teaching in the last year with feedback reviewed by a consultant. On the 2025/26 descriptors the index page reads:

• Operative experience: C, for 20 to 29 cases.
• Surgical experience: A, for an elective in a surgical specialty of at least 4 weeks.
• Quality improvement or clinical audit: C, as a contributor to a project that demonstrated change.
• QI or audit presentation: B, for presenting one cycle at a meeting.
• Presentations and publications: D, for a first-author poster at a national meeting.
• Teaching experience: D, for regular teaching of 4 or more sessions a year.

There’s no starting total to quote, because CST attaches no points to any letter. A teaching course would gain this doctor nothing, as it sits in the same D they already hold. Logging 5 more assisted cases before 19 November would take operative experience from C to B. Designing a 4-session face-to-face programme with a local educator and delivering all four would take teaching from D to A. A personally delivered oral at a peer-reviewed national meeting convened by an accredited institution, with no fee paid to present, would take presentations and publications from D to B. What any of those changes is worth on the day isn’t published: the letters guide the assessors, who then mark the portfolio station from 0 to 6 per element.

Grade yourself, row by row

We haven’t built a CST calculator, because no points exist for the letters and any total would have to be invented. You can still decide which letter each row of your index page should carry. These letters come from the 2025/26 guidance, since the 2027 descriptors haven’t been published, and NHS England says the 2027 domains are “likely” to be realigned with Good Medical Practice, “combining evidence of communication (presenting to colleagues or disseminating research results, teaching health professionals and communication with patients) into one domain.”

• Operative experience: A for 40 or more cases, B for 30 to 39, C for 20 to 29, D for 11 to 19, and E for 10 or fewer. Count cases you assisted in or performed under supervision, and leave out any you only observed.
• Surgical experience: only two letters. A if you’ve done a taster of at least 5 days (they needn’t be consecutive) or a surgical elective of at least 4 weeks as a student, otherwise B.
• Quality improvement or clinical audit, judged on one project: A if you led every aspect of a surgically themed project that closed the loop, B if you led a closed-loop project in any specialty, C if you contributed to one, D for any involvement in an audit or QI project, and E for none.
• QI or audit presentation, open only if you scored A, B or C above: A for presenting both cycles or the change, B for presenting one cycle, and C if you didn’t present it.
• Presentations and publications, your single best item: A for a first-author PubMed paper that isn’t a case report or letter, or the top prize for a national or international oral; B for a selected national oral, a prize-winning first-author poster, or a first-author case report, editorial letter or published book chapter; C for named co-authorship of a PubMed paper; D for a first-author national poster, a regional oral or cited collaborative authorship; E for none.
• Teaching experience: A for designing a face-to-face programme of 4 or more sessions with local educators and delivering at least 4, B for the same online, C for designing one and delivering fewer than 4, D for regular teaching of 4 or more sessions a year or a learning-to-teach course, and E for none.

Put down the letter your evidence will support, because the panel treats it as a starting point: “The score acts as a guide for assessors during the portfolio station … Assessors will review the evidence, then ask candidates some questions about their portfolio and then allocate a final score”.

If you’d like the six CST rows and the key dates on one printable page, leave your email below.

Does a teach the teacher course count for CST?

Only as Category D in the teaching domain. The 2025/26 guidance lists “I have undertaken some educational activity focused on learning to teach” in the same letter as regular teaching, and explains that “This would include any form of educational event focused on learning the skills of teaching – such as a training the trainers course online or otherwise”, with “A certificate for the educational event focused on learning how to teach” as the evidence. So a course moves you from E to D if you have no teaching to claim, and it adds 0 if you already hold D or higher, whether through 4 or more sessions a year or a programme you designed. No points value for D is published, and the course has to be finished by 4pm on 19 November 2026. Our live teach the teacher course is a one-day, 6-hour live session with its own certificate, and that’s how to describe it on your index page. The guidance also warns about some paid courses: “if you have paid for a ‘2 day course’ which only has 6 hours of online activity over two days it is unlikely that the activity has been appropriately peer-reviewed”. It also says “evidence of formal feedback is required for all teaching experience” without making clear whether that applies to the course route, whose listed evidence is the certificate. If you have the weeks to spare, a teaching programme you design and deliver yourself reaches A, the top letter in this domain. Erudical also needs doctors to teach its Teach the Teacher course, so if you would like to do that, get in touch. Our table of what teaching courses score in each specialty shows how other specialties treat the same kind of course.

A national presentation at NMERC before the close

NMERC is held on Saturday 14 November 2026, which leaves five days before CST applications close, and the guidance accepts remote delivery: “All presentations require personal or virtual attendance”. An oral there could take presentations and publications to B, which reads “I have delivered an oral presentation at a national or international medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being selected to do so”, while a first-author poster could reach D under “I am first author for a poster or oral poster presentations presented at an international or national medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being invited/selected to do so”. NMERC is a CPD-accredited national meeting, open to any doctor or medical student. For abstracts decided so far, NMERC’s acceptance letter states that the abstract was reviewed by the Conference Chair, and the guidance asks that “All events at which a presentation is made or journals to which an article is submitted must have an element of peer review.” The panel decides whether that is met. The gain depends on your current row: a poster gives you nothing extra if this row is already at D or above, and an oral only helps if you’re currently below B. If the talk is about an audit you’ve already claimed under QI, it can’t be counted here too. The presentation must be given by 4pm on 19 November, as “All achievements should be completed by close of applications.”, and you then list it on the index page in February with your slides, the programme or acceptance letter naming you as presenter, and a certificate of attendance. Every presenting author is named in the NMERC programme, and certificates are issued to presenters. More about the day is on the NMERC page.

Common questions about the CST portfolio

How is the CST portfolio scored in 2027?

There’s no self-assessment on Oriel this year. If your MSRA result puts you among roughly the top 1,200, you upload an index page with a letter for each row, plus one achievement per domain, between 19 and 24 February 2027. Interviews run online from 1 to 10 March 2027, and the portfolio station combines a pre-prepared 3-minute presentation, 2 minutes of questions on it and two 5-minute questions on two of your domains. Your final score is the MSRA (10%), the portfolio station (45%) and the management and clinical station (45%). No points value per letter has been published.

Do posters and oral presentations count for the CST portfolio?

Yes. On the 2025/26 descriptors a national or international oral you were selected to deliver is B, a first-author national poster is D, and a regional oral is also D. Only a top-prize national oral or a first-author PubMed paper reaches A. Oral poster presentations don’t count as orals, the meeting must involve peer review, and a presentation you paid a fee to give can only be claimed as none/other.

When do CST portfolio achievements have to be completed?

By 4pm on Thursday 19 November 2026, when applications close. The upload comes much later, from Friday 19 to Wednesday 24 February 2027, but the 2027 applying page is clear that “competencies/evidence gained after the application window has closed cannot be accepted.” A case logged, a taster finished or a talk given in December won’t count for this round.