The Datum Report

Occupation 2224 · Professional occupations

Psychotherapists and cognitive behaviour therapists

Half of full-time psychotherapists and cognitive behaviour therapists in the UK earn more than £47,971 a year, and half earn less.

Psychotherapists and cognitive behaviour therapists use a variety of therapies in one-on-one or group settings to help people with mental health issues, stress, emotional and relationship problems.

How people enter it

Job holders in this unit group will usually possess a postgraduate qualification or equivalent accredited qualification. Training usually lasts 4 years. A DBS check may be required for work with vulnerable individuals or children.

What the work involves

• assesses and provides treatment for people suffering with mental illness, stress, and emotional and relationship problems
• talks with patients about their emotions, relationships and personal history
• analyses events, behaviour, and habits to understand their mode of thinking and feelings
• helps people come up with new ways to cope with their problems and to change their ways of thinking

Also called

Cognitive behavioural therapist · Psycho-analyst · Psychological counsellor · Psychotherapist

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for psychotherapists and cognitive behaviour therapists, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 1 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Clinical psychologists · Occupational therapists · Other psychologists · Physiotherapists · Speech and language therapists · Therapy professionals n.e.c.