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 time for relevant experience (e.g. 12 months) before you apply.

• Please see the Courses section for the requirements of individual courses

FTE calculation

Your Application automatically calculates the Full-Time Equivalent in months for each job you add:

• 37.5 hours per week is used 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 be:

• a caring or service role with a relevant client group
• in the public, private or charitable sectors
• part-time or full-time work
• voluntary or paid work, though courses are likely to value paid work over voluntary work

Examples of relevant roles:

• work in mental health in the NHS, or
• work in Social Services, or
• work in services for people with disabilities, or
• work as a Support Worker, or
• work as a Health Care Assistant, etc

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

Supervision by a clinical psychologist

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.

It should give some direct involvement in a clinical area:

• it involves direct contact with users of clinical psychology services, and/or
• the results of the research are clinically applicable

This does not mean that you must have held a research post. Research 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
• Fish4jobs and The Guardian also advertise suitable vacancies

International experience

If you are applying for NHS-funded places:

• it is a good idea to have experience of how services operate in the UK
• experience from other countries should preferably be supplemented by experience in the UK