Skip navigation

Occupational Therapists

Occupational therapists work with people who have a physical or learning disability or mental illness, actively engaging them in purposeful activities in order to maximise self-confidence, independent functioning and well-being.

Wages

New workers
AVERAGE
Experienced
£20,346
£35,819
£52,042

New workers start around £20,346. Normal pay is £35,819 per year.
Highly experienced workers can earn up to £52,042.

Available jobs

In the past year there were 49,459 vacancies for this type of job

6.18%

Projected job growth over the next 8 years

Related courses

People work towards these careers by taking these courses at college and uni.

What they do most days?

  • Maintains patient records, manages caseloads.

  • Counsels clients in ways to promote a healthy lifestyle, prevention of illness and/or preparation for coping with increasing stages of illness.

  • Makes home visits to clients, families and carers to organise support and rehabilitation and assist them to deal and cope with disability.

  • Trains students and supervises the work of occupational therapy assistants.

  • Liaises with a wide variety of other professionals in planning and reviewing ongoing treatments.

  • Devises, designs, initiates and monitors carefully selected and graded treatments and activities as part of the assessment and intervention process.

  • Considers the physical, psychological and social needs of a patient that may result from illness, injury, congenital condition or lifestyle problems.

Hard Skills

Hard skills are specific, learnable, measurable, often industry or occupation-specific abilities related to a position.

Skills are ranked based on the number of job adverts that list them as required skills.

  • Occupational Therapy

  • Rehabilitation

  • Mental Health

  • Physical Therapy

  • Treatment Planning

  • Service Development

  • Auditing

  • Clinical Reasoning

  • Clinical Governance

  • Risk Analysis

Soft Skills

Soft skills can be self-taught and usually do not necessitate a certain completed level of education.

Skills are ranked based on the number of job adverts that list them as required skills.

  • Communication

  • Management

  • Planning

  • Leadership

  • Research

  • Teaching

  • Teamwork

  • Time Management

  • Interpersonal Communications

  • Presentations

How do I get a job like this?

People in these types of job started their career paths after studying courses like the ones below.

Routes to this career

See all