Dental Practitioner Supply and Demand Study

The Dental Practitioner Supply and Demand Study is a health workforce model that projects the supply and demand of Australia's dental practitioners over a 15-year period from 2024 to 2038. The study also produces an unmet demand for the public sector and an unutilised clinical work hours scenario for the private sector.

Dental practitioners have been grouped into 2 categories:

Dentists - including general and specialist dentists
Allied dental practitioners - comprising:

Dental hygienists
Dental therapists
Oral health therapists
Dental prosthetists

Full definitions of these categories are provided in Appendix B of the report.

For the report and key insights, see: Dental Practitioner Supply and Demand Compendium Report - Apr 2026
For the results of the study at the national, and state and territory levels, see: Dental Practitioner Supply and Demand Study Results
For the methodology paper, see: Dental Practitioner Supply and Demand Model - Methodology Paper

Historical trends and the current profile of the dental practitioner workforce can be accessed through the Dental Practitioner Supply Profile Dashboard. This dashboard draws on data from the Australia's Future Health Workforce (AFHW) dataset, which is created from the National Health Workforce Datasets (NHWDS) for workforce modelling and planning.

The model will be updated every two years with the latest available data from all relevant data sources.

If you require further information about the study and/or published results, please contact us on healthworkforcedata@health.gov.au.