Objectives: Challenges of health care systems are about the same throughout the European Union (EU). Besides the aging of health professionals, their replacement is still not fully solved and keeping them is an issue due to work conditions and relatively low income level. Our aim is to map the Hungarian health professional workforce and its proportion relative to the population.

Methods: Data were derived from the National Healthcare Service Centre (National Data Collection Programme, Nr. 1626). The following professions with higher education were analysed: physicians, specialists, dentists, pharmacists, dietitians, physiotherapists, health visitors, paramedics, nurses, and midwives. We assessed changes in the number of workers per 100,000 people between 2003-2018. Population data were from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office.

Results: The number of professionals per 100,000 people were the highest in specialists (80.0), physicians (37.7) and health visitors (35.8) in 2003. They were still the most in 2018 (specialists: 71.0; physicians 46.1; health visitors: 39.2 per 100.000) among all assessed professions. The largest increase in the number of workers per 100,000 was observed among nurses (+113%) and physiotherapists (+101%), while the number of midwives (-34%), dentists (-26%) declined the most between 2003-2018.

Conclusions: Significant differences were observed between professions between 2003-2018. Monitoring changes in healthcare workforce – especially higher educated ones - is extremely important for maintaining stability of health care systems.