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Clinical psychologist wages

How much does a Clinical Child Psychologist earn a year/month/week???

:smile:
Trainee Clinical Psychs paid around £22-24k
Clinical Psychs are generally paid around the mid £30k area.
Consultant Clinical Psychs can be paid up to £80k, although ~£40k is more likely.
(edited 13 years ago)
Working in the NHS clinical psychologist are paid on the Agenda for change scale:
http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details/Default.aspx?Id=766

You go up a point on whatever band you are on on a yearly basis (depending on your start date). You also have increments based on inflation which go up every April at the start of the new financial year. If you live in or around London, you get additional allowance. If you work in forensics you get "danger pay" too.

Trainees will start on the first point of Band 6 and when they finish they will be on the 3rd point. When you qualify you start on the bottom of Band 7 and go up yearly. There is an expectation you will be on a Band 7 job for a minimum of 2 years, but many stay longer. If you want a more senior job (and most of us do) you will go for Band 8 jobs. The majority of psychologists will end up on Band 8a/8b, which are career grade jobs so in a few years be on the high 40k, mid 50ks.

There is no automatic progression across the bands. Each band change requires a new job, so be prepared to move in the first few years of qualified life.

If you are ambitious (like me) you will want to shoot for a consultants post that are at 8c/d (55k-80k). These are rarer, take a minimum of 6 years from qualifying and requires working across several settings and a demonstration of certain competencies to be eligible for. At that stage you are not only going to be doing the clinical psychology core duties of therapy, assessment, psychometrics, but you WILL have to have management, leadership, teaching skills, service development and revenue generating ability. If you are really driven, you can go for a Band 9 job which would take the responsibility of providing for a service for entire counties, but there are probably only a few dozen of these posts available.

If you want to work privately, the BPS rough guideline is about £50-120 per hour depending on what service you are providing. You can do expert witness work for courts, which pays more, but is a pain in the arse unless you enjoy excessive pedantry. Psychometrics also pay more (as only psychologists tend to do this and there is high demand), but therapy tends to pay less (as there are more than just psychologists providing it).
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clairelou92
OP
7
Do you think 40k a year is enough to live a comfortable life??
Yes, it's better than most wages. But that is considering you get in to the highly competitive post.

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