Applicants for the STP 2021 intake were only allowed to apply to 1 specialism. This was altered due to the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the recruitment process to the programme that year.
| Specialism | Number of applications | Number of direct entry posts | Competition ratio |
| Andrology | 13 | 2 | 6.5 |
| Audiology | 119 | 15 | 7.9 |
| Cancer Genomics | 388 | 14 | 27.7 |
| Cardiac Science | 601 | 38 | 15.8 |
| Clinical Biochemistry | 822 | 31 | 26.5 |
| Clinical Bioinformatics (Genomics) | 174 | 6 | 29.0 |
| Clinical Bioinformatics (Health Informatics) | 36 | 7 | 5.1 |
| Clinical Bioinformatics (Physical Sciences) | 29 | 4 | 7.3 |
| Clinical Engineering | 232 | 20 | 11.6 |
| Clinical Immunology | 310 | 7 | 44.3 |
| Clinical Pharmaceutical Science | 272 | 12 | 22.7 |
| Critical Care Science | 80 | 7 | 11.4 |
| Gastrointestinal Physiology | 21 | 1 | 21.0 |
| Genomic Counselling (formerly Genetic Counselling) | 484 | 14 | 34.6 |
| Genomics (formerly Genetics) | 403 | 15 | 26.9 |
| Haematology and Transfusion Science | 114 | 2 | 57.0 |
| Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics | 73 | 7 | 10.4 |
| Medical Physics | 640 | 68 | 9.4 |
| Microbiology | 509 | 8 | 63.6 |
| Neurophysiology | 334 | 6 | 55.7 |
| Reconstructive Science | 32 | 5 | 6.4 |
| Reproductive Science | 353 | 9 | 39.2 |
| Respiratory and Sleep Sciences | 128 | 8 | 16.0 |
| Vascular Science | 79 | 14 | 5.6 |