Free template

Veterinary job description templates for five practice roles

Generic job description templates are written for offices and then handed to a practice employing people who work nights, drive to yards and carry professional registration. This pack starts from veterinary work: five roles, written for how a practice actually runs.

Editable Word document, free, emailed to you.

The five roles

• Veterinary Surgeon. Clinical responsibilities, the out of hours expectation stated plainly, RCVS registration and the 35 hour CPD requirement, and supervision of nurses and graduates.
• Registered Veterinary Nurse. In-patient care, theatre, nurse clinics, clinical coaching, and the 15 hour CPD requirement.
• Student Veterinary Nurse. Including a section most job descriptions leave out: what the practice commits to, with protected coaching time as a rota fact rather than a good intention.
• Veterinary Receptionist. The appointment book, payments, difficult conversations, and a named route for reporting abusive client behaviour.
• Practice Manager. Rota, people, compliance and the records the practice is now required to keep, with an honest guidance note about what happens when the list exceeds the week.

What generic templates get wrong

The out of hours line contradicts the contract

Three documents saying three different things about on call is the most reliable way to lose someone in their first year. Each job description here tells you to state it in the same words as the contract and the rota policy.

Registered staff are quietly given unregistered work

An RVN spending two hours a day on reception is a third of a nurse you are already paying for. The RVN template says to leave reception cover out unless it is genuinely part of the role, so that it becomes a decision rather than a habit.

They drift, and you notice at the worst moment

A job description written when the practice had six staff is quietly wrong by the time it has fourteen, and it is the document you reach for in a capability conversation. The pack tells you to review all five each September alongside contracts.

Use it with

A job description is not a contract, and should sit alongside one rather than inside it. Pair this with our veterinary employment contract template and, once someone starts, the probation review form, which matters more from 1 January 2027 when the unfair dismissal qualifying period falls to six months.