Entry requirements

You should gain some relevant clinically-related experience before applying for clinical psychology courses. This helps you to know what you are applying for, what clinical psychologists do, the settings they work in, and the clients they work with.

It allows you to work in the field before committing to a career in clinical psychology, and to understand what work with clients actually involves. Many trainees make good use during their course of the experience they gain at this stage, so it is not "wasted" time.

How much experience do I need?

You do not necessarily need a long list of varied clinical experience: quality of experience is valued alongside quantity.

Whatever work you do, courses are mainly interested in what you have learnt from your experiences, both personally and professionally.

Some courses require a minimum length of time for relevant experience e.g. 12 months.

• Please see the Courses section for the requirements of individual course centres

Your Application will automatically calculate the Full-Time Equivalent in months for each job you add. The calculation uses 37.5 hours per week as full-time. For current jobs November is used as the end date because this is when applications close.

When can I get experience?

You can get experience before, during or after your undergraduate degree.

You should plan your time to strengthen your Application as much as possible e.g. undergraduates could find relevant work over the summer.

What counts as experience?

Relevant experience can include part-time or full-time, voluntary or paid work. However, courses are likely to value paid work over voluntary work.

Relevant experience can involve caring or service roles with a relevant client group, whether in the public, private or charitable sectors. 

Although experience of working in mental health in the NHS is common, work in other areas and in other roles is also relevant, for example:

• work in Social Services, or
• work in services for people with disabilities, or
• work in the charitable sector, or
• work as a Support Worker, or
• work as a Health Care Assistant, etc.

Some courses may value clinical experience which has been supervised by a qualified clinical psychologist over other types of experience. If possible, you should seek regular supervision or contact from a qualified clinical psychologist. If your job does not involve such contact you may benefit by making contact with local clinical psychologists.

Research experience

Research experience (in addition to the undergraduate project) in a branch of psychology or a related discipline can also be relevant, if it gives some direct involvement in a clinical area e.g. where it involves direct contact with users of clinical psychology services, or where the results of the research are clinically applicable.

This does not mean that you must have held a research post. This sort of experience can often be gained in a clinical post (e.g. involving clinically-related research and service evaluation).

Where to look for jobs

The links below are suggestions of where to look for relevant work: they are not an endorsement or recommendation by the Clearing House. This is not intended as an exhaustive or definitive list and other websites will also be useful.

• NHS posts are advertised on NHS Jobs (England & Wales), NHS Scotland Jobs and Jobs HSCNI (Northern Ireland)
• Jobs in the health sector are advertised on HealthJobs and on Pulse
• Jobs in social care are advertised on Community Care and on Local Government Jobs
• CharityJob advertises vacancies in the charity sector and you can also check the websites of specific relevant charities such as Mind for vacancies
• The Guardian and Fish4jobs also advertise suitable vacancies

International experience

It is a good idea to have experience of how services operate in the UK if you are applying for NHS places. So, for applications for NHS places, experience from other countries should preferably be supplemented by experience in the UK.