People taking the QCOP route into counselling psychology are quite rare, and I would argue that is for a reason.
While the doctorate is competitive (clinical even moreso), they provide you a lot of infastructure to your training. They have a clear curriculum, placements and competencies you need to cover and they are built into the training programme. They ensure you have the necessary academic, research and clinical components you need to meet HCPC requirements, and have the tutors and placements to ensure this happens. If you are doing the independent route, you have to figure out all of that yourself, pay for the various components independently and find your own placements.
The last thing is the hardest part without any contacts or personal links. To give you an example, my service hosts a NHS clinical placement for a trainee clinical psychology, that I supervise. It is reserved for DClinPsy trainees at my local university, as I know they have been trained, vetted, criminal record checked and have already met a specific criteria my service demands. I wouldn't take on a QCOP trainee as I will have no guarantee of any of the above, and that burden of checking would fall on me. Most in demand services are going to think similarly as CAMHS, CMHTs and other core NHS services (that give you the best clinical experience) will have pre-existing agreements with universities that jealously guard their placements. As a result independent counselling psychology trainees often have to take placements with non-NHS organisations, or less in demand services.
To draw an analogy with home ownership it's the difference between you buying a house from an established housebuilding company vs, you buying the land, finding an architect, finding a builder, doing the wiring and plumbing yourself. You end up in both situations with a house you own, but one route is far more straightforward and quicker.