A newly ordained deacon or priest's first years in ministry are, in most Anglican provinces, formally structured as a period called initial ministerial education, during which the curate serves under a designated training incumbent who is expected to mentor, supervise, and formally assess the curate's developing pastoral, liturgical, and preaching skills. This structured curacy, typically lasting two to four years and often divided into a first, more closely supervised phase followed by a somewhat more independent second phase, is treated as an extension of the candidate's formation rather than simply a first job, with the diocese retaining oversight of how it is going through regular reviews.
Historically the term curate could also describe a perpetual curate, a priest permanently responsible for a parish or chapel that had no endowed rector or vicar of its own, a distinct and now obsolete category that nineteenth century legislation eventually converted into ordinary vicariates. In today's usage curate almost always means the assistant, newly ordained sense, and the perpetual curacies that once complicated English parish terminology have long since disappeared from live church structures.