How to Build Clinical Experience for a Psychology Career in the UK

Building relevant clinical experience is one of the most important steps if you're aiming for psychology training in the UK. Whether you're targeting clinical psychology, counselling psychology, or other routes like CBT or PWP training, getting hands-on experience with clients and healthcare teams is pretty much essential.

Why Clinical Experience Matters

Clinical experience does a few things for your career. First, it helps you work out whether this field is actually what you want before you commit years to training. It's one thing to study psychology at university; it's another thing entirely to work with clients day-to-day and see what the job really involves.

For training courses, your clinical experience shows that your application is realistic and grounded in genuine understanding of the profession. Admissions panels want to see how you've responded to clinical challenges and what you've learnt from working with clients.

The competition for psychology training places is intense; only 21% of applicants secured places on NHS clinical psychology training in 2024. Most successful candidates work for around 1-2 years in relevant roles before getting on to doctoral programmes, so you're looking at building experience rather than ticking boxes quickly.

What Counts as Relevant Clinical Experience?

Relevant clinical experience includes both voluntary and paid positions that involve direct service or care roles with clients across public, private, or voluntary sectors. The key is finding opportunities that give you understanding of the psychologist's role, seeing what psychologists actually do day-to-day, including assessment, intervention, and consultation work. You want direct client contact with meaningful interaction, clinical context awareness of what client work actually involves (challenges, rewards, ethical considerations), and organisational insight into the healthcare or service contexts where psychological work happens, particularly within the NHS.

Assistant Psychologist roles are the most direct pathway to relevant experience. These positions (which often get over 100 applications) offer exposure to psychological practice under qualified supervision. You'll find them advertised through NHS Jobs, the British Psychological Society bulletin, and healthcare publications, but they're scarce, so don't rely solely on this route.

Healthcare Assistant and Support Worker positions within NHS mental health services provide excellent foundational experience. These roles typically involve supporting clients with mental health conditions, participating in multidisciplinary team meetings, and learning about risk assessment and safeguarding. Working on mental health wards or in community mental health teams shows you the collaborative nature of multidisciplinary working and helps you understand how psychology fits within broader treatment approaches.

Recovery Worker positions in substance misuse services offer valuable experience working with complex client presentations. These roles often involve conducting assessments, delivering group interventions, and working within structured treatment programmes. Similarly, support roles in learning disability services, older adult services, or CAMHS provide exposure to specialist psychological approaches and different client groups.

Research Assistant positions can provide relevant experience, particularly when they involve direct clinical contact or community-based research. Look for opportunities that combine research methodology with client interaction, such as studies involving patient interviews or RCTs. I'd also highly recommend using your networking skills and contacting current PhD students to see if they need support with executing study protocols or recruitment.

Charities and voluntary organisations offer loads of pathways to gain relevant experience. MIND day centres, crisis support services like Samaritans or SHOUT, rough sleepers' support centres, and domestic violence services like Solace or Refuge all provide meaningful client contact opportunities. These roles often offer more flexibility around training and development, with many organisations providing comprehensive induction programmes and ongoing supervision.

Skills to Develop and How to Approach Experience-Building

Through your clinical experience, you want to develop an understanding of risk assessment and management; how to identify, assess, and manage risk is fundamental to psychological practice. Look for opportunities that expose you to risk assessment procedures and crisis intervention protocols. Multidisciplinary working is important too, since psychology rarely operates in isolation. Find roles that involve collaboration with nurses, doctors, social workers, occupational therapists, and other healthcare professionals.

Building therapeutic relationships; establishing rapport, maintaining professional boundaries, and working therapeutically with vulnerable individuals—forms the foundation of psychological practice. You'll also want experience with clinical record-keeping, report writing, and professional communication. Many support roles involve maintaining case notes and contributing to care planning processes, which is really valuable.

There's no rush, but it helps to start seeking experience during your final undergraduate year rather than waiting until graduation. Many voluntary organisations welcome psychology students for placements or volunteer roles that can develop into paid positions. Rather than trying to build an extensive portfolio across multiple client groups, focus on gaining meaningful, reflective experience in areas that genuinely interest you.

Contact potential supervisors directly to discuss opportunities and maintain connections with qualified psychologists on LinkedIn. Many positions aren't formally advertised, and expressing genuine interest can lead to informal arrangements or notifications about upcoming vacancies. Part-time clinical work can provide valuable experience while allowing you to pursue other commitments, though make sure the hours are sufficient to gain meaningful exposure—typically at least 15-20 hours per week.

Making the Most of Your Experience

Wherever possible, find roles that offer supervision from qualified psychologists. This provides direct insight into psychological thinking and practice while building valuable professional relationships. Develop skills in reflecting on your experiences. This means exploring what you've learnt about yourself, your clients, and the profession. This reflective capacity is crucial for doctoral applications and interviews. It's also helpful to keep records of your experiences, including challenging situations you've navigated, skills you've developed, and insights you've gained.

Pay attention to how services are structured, funded, and delivered. Understanding NHS processes, care pathways, and service user experiences demonstrates important professional awareness that panels notice.

Most successful psychology doctorate applicants spend 1-2 years gaining relevant experience before securing training places. A typical progression might start with voluntary work or support roles to gain initial exposure and develop foundational skills, then move into paid positions with greater responsibility, potentially including Assistant Psychologist roles or specialist support positions. You'll likely continue developing experience while making doctorate applications, often requiring multiple application cycles.

While voluntary work can provide excellent experience, make sure any unpaid positions offer genuine learning opportunities, appropriate supervision, and clear development pathways. Avoid situations where you're simply providing free labour without meaningful training or support. Focus on roles that offer genuine learning opportunities rather than positions that simply look impressive on paper. A well-supervised support worker role often provides more valuable experience than a poorly supported research position.

Choose experiences that genuinely interest you rather than roles you think admission panels want to see. Your passion and engagement will come through in applications and interviews, and you'll get more out of experiences you're actually invested in.

Final Thoughts

Building clinical experience requires planning and persistence. The process can be challenging and competitive, but each experience contributes to your professional development and strengthens your foundation for future training.

Remember that successful applicants typically demonstrate not just the quantity of their experience, but the quality of their reflection and learning from that experience.

Ready to take the next step in your psychology career? I offer specialised career coaching to support aspiring psychologists with doctorate applications, interview preparation, and professional development throughout your journey into clinical practice. Get in touch here!