HOW TO BECOME A REGISTERED NURSE IN FINLAND?
If you are interested in working as a nurse in Finland, whether or not you already have a prior degree in the field, you need to first get a qualified degree and get licensed by the Finnish health care authorities. However, because of the massive demand for healthcare workers in this country, getting licensed will also give you excellent job opportunities in one of the best health care system in the world.
In this blog I will break down everything that you need to know about getting licensed to work as a nurse in Finland.
How to work as a nurse in Finland?
To become a nurse in Finland, you need to obtain a qualified degree in nursing from a Finnish university of applied sciences, after which you have to apply for a license to practice as a nurse through the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira in short).
A degree in nursing in Finland is a Bachelor’s level degree that takes around 3,5 years to complete. In addition to your degree, all practicing nurses and other health care professionals working in Finland have to reach a certain proficiency in Finnish or Swedish before applying for a license.
What if you have a previous degree in nursing from abroad?
A common question that I get all the time is, what if you already have a degree in nursing from your home country, for example, from the Philippines? Well in short, if you have a degree or a certificate in nursing from another country, you unfortunately cannot work as a nurse in Finland with just that degree. This is because of the legislation that we have in Finland as well as in the European Union, that together define the minimum qualifications for nurses. The issue is that most of the nursing degrees taught outside the European Union do not fulfil these requirements.
However, if you have a previous degree in nursing, do not worry because there is a great way for you to get certified to work in Finland without redoing your entire degree! What you need to do is to apply for a so called “top-up” degree which is basically a supplementary nursing degree that allows you to get certified to work here in less than three academic years. If you compare this to a full Bachelor’s degree in nursing which, as I mentioned before takes around 3,5 years, doing a top-up degree is basically a faster way to get certified. Even better, because these top-up degrees are also taught in accordance with EU directives, completing such a degree not only gets you qualified to work in Finland, but also all around the European Union as well.
Why study nursing in Finland?
Regardless of whether you already have a degree in nursing or whether you want to start your studies from scratch, an important question is, why should you study and work as a nurse in Finland? Well, to put this in simple terms, Finland has a massive and ever-growing demand for nurses and other talented healthcare workers and finding work after graduation (and also during your studies) is really easy. More about this in just a second.
In addition, the quality of nursing education in Finland is extremely high and Finnish universities of applied sciences offer world-class education in the field. Its good to note that getting a degree in nursing from Finland not only gets you qualified to work as a nurse here but also in other European Union countries as well. Also, the fact that Finland has one of the best health care systems in the world means that studying under this system will prepare you for an excellent career in the field.
How much does it cost to study nursing in Finland?
The next important question is, how much does a degree in nursing cost? Well the exact tuition fees per year depends on the specific school that you are applying to but in general, tuition fees for nursing for students who come from outside the European Union or European Economics Area are commonly less than 10 000 euros per year. Here are a few examples:
Bachelor’s in nursing from the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences: 11 000€ per year
Bachelor’s in nursing from the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences: 8 000€ per year
Bachelor’s in nursing from the Oulu University of Applied Sciences: 8 000€ per year
Bachelor’s in nursing from the Lapland University of Applied sciences: 8 000€ per year
These kinds of tuition fees makes the cost of studying nursing in Finland much more affordable than in many other European and non-European Union countries. Also, due to the comparably high salaries and the excellent job opportunities (even during your studies) getting a degree in Finland will pay itself back very quickly. More about nursing jobs and salaries at the end of this blog.
Do also remember that universities in Finland offer generous scholarship programmes to people who come from outside the European Union and European Economic area. If you want to learn more about university scholarships in Finland, check out this video👇
What does a Bachelors in nursing include?
The next question you might have is what does a Bachelor’s in nursing actually include? Well, the exact contents of your studies will be dependent on your individual study plan which is done at the start of your studies. However, if we take an overall look at the Bachelor’s degrees in nursing in Finland, they consist of
Basic studies
Professional studies
Elective studies
Supervised clinical practises and
A Bachelor’s thesis
In Finland, all of these studies focus around evidence-based clinical nursing and key clinical skills that are required from every nurse working not only in Finland but also around the European Union. Before progressing to your clinical practices you will first need to hone your practical skills in clinical laboratories and in simulated learning environments.
Talking about clinical practices, its good to note that a significant portion of your studies will consist of these practises and that they will take place in various care and operating environments in both the health care and social services sectors. However, what is even more important to understand is that the clinical practices will take place in Finnish language environments AND this is why good Finnish language skills at least on a basic level are going to be extremely helpful. I should also note that your nursing studies will ALSO include Finnish language courses that WILL ALLOW you to reach the necessarily proficiency level required to get licensed as a nurse in Finland.
Language requirements
Alright so let’s talk more about the language requirements. There are two super important things to keep in mind. First, and as i mentioned in the beginning of the blog, every single person applying for a nursing licence in Finland has to achieve a certain level (B1 to be exact) in Finnish language before they can start practicing as a registered nurse.
Second, and as I mentioned just a above, parts of the nursing studies in Finland, namely the clinical practices will be arranged in a Finnish language environment. Because of this, SOME schools do require you to achieve the B1 level proficiency in Finnish already BEFORE your first clinical practices, which usually start either after the first 6 or 12 months of your studies. However there are also some schools that do NOT require this proficiency this early, but rather, they will arrange the first clinical practices in English. However, to make this even more complicated, there are also a number of schools that require you to have B2 level Finnish skills already before you apply to the school. So yeah, it’s a bit complicated and you need to check which of these applies to you. You can do this from individual school websites.
How to apply for a bachelors in nursing?
Alright so taking all of the previous stuff into account, the next logical question is, how do actually you apply to a bachelor’s programme in nursing? Well there are multiple ways to do this.
Look up any of the English language programmes offered by universities of applied sciences, and go through the university application process described in this video.
Apply to a nursing programme through Edunation (use the code “Oliver” for a 50€ discount on the application).
If you are not yet quite ready to apply to these programmes on your own, or if you do not yet fulfil the minimum requirements to apply (e.g. in terms of your English language skills), you should look up the Edunation Pathway to Finland programme (use the code “Oliver” for a 50€ discount on the application).
Working as a nurse in Finland
Next, let’s talk about working as a nurse in Finland. As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog, Finland has a huge shortage of nurses and other health care workers and according to estimates, we need to hire around 30 000 more healthcare workers by 2030, meaning that getting licensed as a nurse will open up incredible work opportunities. In fact, the current demand is so huge that after getting licensed, you should have no issues finding work as a nurse. Instead, you should be able to work as much as you want with a ton of employers both in the public and private sectors fighting over the best employees.
If you are wondering what kind of employers there are in Finland, do not worry. You will have plenty of opportunities to learn about a range of potential employers while studying your degree e.g. through your clinical practices.
How much do nurses earn in Finland?
Going back to job opportunities in the health care sector, a common question that i get is “How much are nurses paid in Finland?” Well, according to data from one of the biggest recruitment companies in Finland, an average pay for nurses in 2020 was 3185 euros per month before taxes. Thats 38220 euro per year before taxes. The exact salary will vary slightly based on your experience and on the employer. For example, nurses working in municipal health care had an average monthly salary of 3207 euros. In comparison, those working for national health care services had an average of 3474 euros and those working the in private sector had a monthly salary of 3062 euros.
What you should also take into account is that your salary is not the only relevant benefit that you should take into account when choosing the country that you want to work in. In fact, working in Finland will also enable you to utilise the excellent public services that we have in this country. These include the free health care system which is ranked as one of the best in the world, and which will potentially help you save tens of thousands of euros compared to living in countries where health care is not free at the point of service. In addition, if you decide to stay in Finland and raise a family here, your children will be able to enjoy the worlds best education system with free education from primary school all the way to university. In fact, taking into account the many benefits of the Finnish welfare society, the cost of living in Finland is relatively low compared to many other countries with a demand for nurses, and combining the previously mentioned salaries and low cost of living, Finland is actually a very attractive country to move in.
Anyways, next I recommend that you check out the video below where I go through 5 reasons why you should choose to study in Finland 👇
