Calling all counsellors!

[Wannabeeeeee]

Sorry - posting for traffic.

I want to retrain to be a counsellor. I've done all the research but what I need finally is to know how much work is actually out there?

There seems to be a huge need for counsellors but the NHS don't seem to employ many. There are few charities too. Private practise scares me - I don't have an appropriate room in my house. The lack of steady income bothers me.

If you are counsellor - who do you work for? Do you get enough hours? I read the max recommended is 20 hours a week. I don't need to make tonnes of money but I do need to keep a roof over my head.

Do most do it part time?

Any help would be so appreciated,
Thanks!

I trained as a counsellor in 2013. I did an accredited course that took 4 years of training. (Most jobs will require an accredited course) it cost approximately 5k. It gave me a Level 4 diploma.
As well as the study I had to accrue 100 hours of counselling (unpaid). Have 10 hours of therapy which cost £300 and have monthly supervision at a cost of £50 a month.
I then chose to top this up to a degree in relational therapy.
After finishing my qualification I volunteered in a nhs bereavement service and at a women's centre. I applied for numerous jobs, got some interviews but failed to get a job.
Eventually I got a job as a family support worker in social services which enabled me to use my skill set indirectly.
I also set up a part time private practice from home.
I was over worked and under paid in social services and after a few years left due to stress.
Due to the decline in my mh I didn't feel it would be ethical to continue practicing so I gave up my business.
That was 5 years ago and I am now a librarian and I love it.
I don't regret training and I basically got a degree for less than 10k . But I would recommend doing some research about your area. The town I lived in trained 60 counsellors every year and there would be 2 or 3 paid jobs. A lot of services including nhs and council rely on volunteers. Private practice is an option but depends on of people can afford to pay.

My best friend retrained and qualified a few years ago, she has roughly 5 private practice clients, and the rest are through an international company that match counsellors with clients. The private practice clients are much more lucrative but harder to get. She works from home, but did her training in a centre where she could have rented a room. (I’m not sure how much this costs) so even though she is loving it, it’s not turned out to be the high paid steady income she had hoped for.

Through the nhs and private sector I see more job openings and demand for pyschological wellbeing practitioner's, cbt and dbt therapists. I'm not sure of the route into them but I think counselling is a step in that direction.

I think as a counsellor getting a private case load is dependent on location, more affluent areas if you have a good rep you'd do well, less affluent it's probably dependent on nhs which is very limited, or charities which can have good jobs.

Also lots of good roles within universities and companies that do work place well-being and occ health

Hoping in if that’s ok as wanting to know the same please!

@autienotnaughty sounds like an extremely long road that did not lead to what you wanted ultimately.

Yes - I've been looking it up and I did wonder whether all the hours you have to counsel for as part of your training were paid or not. Gutted to hear you aren't paid anything! I think that's bloody unfair to be be honest.

I'm in a profession I hate at the moment and approaching 40. I don't need it to be lucrative but I do need out of my current situation.

I live in a deprived area but within commuting distance of a city.

Sounds like it's actually not a good option. Back to the drawing board I guess. I will end up ditching my career and taking a massive pay cut so I was just hoping it might be a pay cut for something I love.

@Wannabeeeeee

Tbh the further into training I got the more obvious it was that most of us would not make a career out of counselling due to too many voluntary roles and not enough paid ones. NHS tend to hire within. There's some roles through being an associate, I remember a school one but you were essentially self employed, involved travel and you would only be paid for the hour you counselled. I had barriers in that I live in a deprived area, I couldn't move and needed a full time income. But from recollection no one from my course year got a full time position. Some like me dabbled in part time and some volunteered until they left the profession. I would say it's poor odds.

I’ve had a couple of counsellors. One was employed by the NHS. He was a clinical psychologist. The other one was employed by a charity. The counselling was over the phone.

have you considered mental health nursing?

The NHS is dictated by NICE guidelines so although counselling may be helpful you are more likely to be employed if you are an accredited CBT practitioner and the NHS does have jobs where they will pay you to train in this (look up mud talking therapies to find who does the service in your area then see what jobs they have, often CBT ones advertised as a bunch due to timing of academic years for courses starting). Counsellors tend to fall more within less stable income areas such as charities and private work.

I have a private practice but only 5-10 clients each week (evenings and weekends). The Level 4 Diploma helped me to get a Personal Wellbeing role within a charity working with ex-prisoners, which I don’t think I would have done without the qualification. It just means I work between 45-50 hours per week LOL

I'm in private practice in a city. Trained about 10 years ago. There's no shortage of clients: I could be seeing as many as there are hours in the week.

I had originally expected to see about 20 clients a week (thinking that would be a good part time workload while my kids were little). In fact the maximum that I can manage is about 14. Anything more than that, and I'd either start burning out emotionally, or I'd have to give less of myself (just clock in and out without being as present to my clients).

This means there's a relatively low ceiling to my earnings. I charge £60 per hour, but have to deduct room rental, supervision, CPD, etc. And obviously not every space is filled every week with my holidays, clients holidays and other absences.

I've been encouraged by family/friends to increase my fees, but a) £60 is the going rate where I leave, and b) if I increased it much, I'd be limiting myself to a very wealthy demographic. Even £80 would be too much for most of the people I currently work with.

I guess what I'm saying is that business viability isn't just about there being enough space in the market. I'm constantly declining new clients, and feel bad that I can't even really refer them onto someone else, because everyone I know is pretty fully booked (and none of us are rolling in it 😆).

I meant to say, I'm actually looking to move out of counselling even though I find it a hugely rewarding and mostly enjoyable job. I just need more money! I've trained in UX Design, and am hoping I'll eventually earn more money there. Ideally I'd have a part time job in UX and be able to keep at least some of my counselling practice going

I’m a counsellor in private practice. I rent my own office space and only see fee-paying clients. I see 25 each week, which means I have three supervision sessions each month and need to prioritise self-care.

In my experience there’s so much work out there, and if you’ve any interest in working with a particular group of people or area (sexual violence; children and young people; addictions etc) there will likely be pathways into charities or to offer a specialist service in private practice.

In my geographical area most counselling roles are sessional, which means an agency/charity pays a fee per session to the counsellor, who is self-employed. That fee is around £30 per hour. Most counsellors here have a few agencies they work for to give them the hours they need.

There are also private health care companies like Axa and BUPA that you can work for, and rates of pay can be negotiated.

I don’t work for any agencies or charities as I focused on growing my own practice but it is common to have income from both sources in the counselling world.

I love my job, it’s hard at times, but so rewarding and I think it’ll carry me through to retirement as I can pick and choose when and how I work.

Thank you, the varied experiences have been so helpful to read. I feel it's really important to state that the career I'm in pays me 45k max per year but is burning me out. At the moment I've gone part time and am on more like 20k. We are surviving perfectly well on this, due to having a very modest house etc. I always knew I would leave my current job.

So counselling 20hrs per week would suit me fine. I'm in my mid life - I just want to be happy and to pay my bills. I live in a very cheap part of the country, in a deprived area. But I could easily work in the nearest city.

20 hours might sound like not much but I agree with another poster above. At my absolute maximum I can manage 20 but it leaves me with little energy for anything else. 12-14 is about what I can comfortably manage.

Because of the constant looming of regulation, I’d strongly recommend doing a Masters degree with minimum of 450 placement hours and find a course that mandates 40 hours of personal therapy per year.

I have a private practice and it makes me enough money to get by. I have a pretty steady 10-12 clients at any one time. Some I see weekly, some fortnightly. I see about half of these clients online and the rest I hire a room locally which is not expensive and I include the room hire cost in my pricing so this is covered. I have had no problem finding work and have a few new enquiries most weeks at the moment.
Go for it and good luck. I do not currently want to work for NHS etc as private practice allows me to plan well around my family life and I really enjoy the freedom of working for myself. I do keep on top of things like managing my pension contributions etc though which is still important.

No, I'm very aware that 20hrs of listening to people would be challenging. It's very interesting seeing how vastly different the replies are on here. Some people are managing 25 just fine, others 10. It must really depend on the person.

I currently do work with the next generation and frankly I think think the need for counsellors is becoming critical. The generation of teenagers I work with will be needing a lot of it in years to come. Whether the NHS or government will ever react to that is unknown.

I'm interested that some posters have said it's not been as lucrative as they had hoped - I've never once thought counselling would be well paid. I'm happy to do a part time job on the side as well.

What I don't want is to stay in my current role and have huge regrets.

Would anyone be willing to share their approx annual income after expenses? I'm struggling to picture it. For example, I need to make about 20k to get by in life and be happy.

It's hard to picture what the cost of rooms to rent is etc

The thing is the annual income will vary a fair bit depending on area etc so it's hard to gauge a true reflection for you. I know I found that confusing when I was first looking into it too. I charge £60 an hour and do around 10ish sessions a week. Room hire where I am is £10 an hour and I get a slight discount for block bookings.
I would suggest do some research on local room hire availability and costs and see what local therapists are charging per hour to get an idea of what's possible for you.
Hope that helps a bit. It's what I did anyway.

I also pay for supervision at £50 a month and any CPD I want to do on top of that a few times a year. Public Liability Insurance once a year and membership of governing body (BACP but there are various to choose from depending on what suits you)

That's really helpful. - thank you!

If you were thinking about opportunities to deliver therapy in an NHS setting it may be worth looking at the PPN careers map.

https://www.ppn.nhs.uk/resources/careers-map

20 clients a week is the maximum recommended by the institute I trained at. That's 4 a day, and it's a huge mental load. You need to be in personal therapy yourself, permanently, so that's another hour. Then you need to allow time for your supervision. So even if you fill your rota as a private practitioner, which can take a long time to achieve, and charge £80 an hour (you can charge more in London - I know of some "superstar therapists" that charge £350 an hour! - but going with that as a reasonable expectation) you're looking at about £70k. Subtract renting your room, taxes, of course, professional insurance, and the ongoing cost of further training (it's a process of lifelong learning and this is important to embrace) and you're not going to be making a fortune. Many do it part time, which, given you will need to drop down to four days a week for most training, is something you can just carry on with as the structure of your working week.