ÌÇÐĹÙÍø

During 2025 4028 of you completed our Working Practices survey. Data from this survey helps to support policy and advocacy work at ÌÇÐĹÙÍø by building a current picture of members’ working practice. Thank you to everyone who took the time to provide their feedback. Survey results will enable us to identify gaps in provision and make a stronger case for support with policy makers and commissioners.

Key areas of information collected by the survey

We collect: 

• sectors members work in
• client groups worked with
• areas of practice specialism
• levels of training
• income and capacity for additional employment
• demographic characteristics
  

Findings from the survey are used by our policy team to inform wider policy discussions and strategy relating to the counselling profession. This includes information about aspects such as annual income, working hours, additional client hours required, training, professional roles and assessing differences. Data across sectors (for example, private practice, healthcare, workplace, and children, young people and families), nations, and demographic characteristics is also gathered as part of this survey. Analysis of this key information helps identify differences between groups and highlight where further support may be needed.

This year’s response rate was 7.5%, higher than the previous years.

Insights from the 2025 survey

The most common professional role was as a practitioner in private practice or in the third, charitable and voluntary sector. 21% of those who completed the survey were supervisors.  

Income from counselling work 

• 66.22% told us they earn £30,000 per annum or less, this represents a slight decrease on last year of 1%
• 31.32% earn £12,500 per annum or less, this figure was lower than last year
• 31.54% of respondents agreed they could earn a living from their counselling work which is a decrease of approximately 5% from last year
• 7.36% of respondents working in the third sector report that they earn nothing from counselling work, this figure is higher than in any other sector.

While the decline in those agreeing that they could earn a living from their counselling work is a concern, we remain committed to representing counselling and psychotherapy to commissioners and policy makers at the highest levels.

Our recent work

We worked with members in about 40 NHS Talking therapy services in England who’ve reached out for support with pay inequity in NHS England. Our Policy and Engagement Lead for Mental Health, Matt Smith-Lilley, produced a resource pack to support members in challenging pay inequity locally – bringing together key evidence to make the case to NHS Trusts and care boards on why pay equity is needed. About 20 services have now brought pay in line with Agenda for Change, worth around £10,000 per full-time role each year.

We’ve been a key member of the Fund the Hubs campaign, which successfully secured £75m funding for Young Futures Hubs across England. Now in the next phase, we’re part of a DCMS external working group to design the Hubs delivery model. We’ll continue to advocate for therapy to be a core element of provision across the fifty Hubs proposed for England.

We launched an evaluation of Scotland’s school counselling programme. We met with members, school counsellors, local authority services’ leads, school staff, and Scottish Government representatives at the start of the project, which will produce a report to be shared ahead of the 2026 Scottish elections.

Along with other organisations we’re lobbying the government for an extension to the Shared Outcomes Fund - which has now been secured for the 2026/27 financial year - extending provision across 24 Early Support Hubs. Going forward, we’ll be striving to secure long-term, sustainable and higher investment in these vital services, which should boost stable and fair-pay work for children and young people practitioners.

Training

Most respondents completed primary training in either integrative (39.48%) or person centred (29.54%) theoretical models.

A high proportion of respondents enter the Profession with a Level 4 (32.28%) or Postgraduate (20.79%).

It’s helpful for us to understand more about the levels at which members are joining the profession, this number appears to be steady year on year. As an Association, we aim to meet the needs of all our members, whatever stage of training you’re at.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

• 88.52% people who completed this year’s survey identify as white, this is slightly lower than last year’s percentage of 90.23%
• In comparison to national averages there’s an underrepresentation of Black and Asian individuals reflected in the responses to this survey

We want to continue building on this important work and do more to lead the future of the profession and good practice from the inside out.

In September 2025, we restarted our equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) mentoring scheme for student members and trainees.ÌýWe received an overwhelmingly positive response which led us to increasing the number of available spaces to 50 pairs of mentors and mentees.ÌýAn evaluation of this scheme will be completed in summer 2026 as we plan for another phase.Ìý

Out of six member organisations who were awarded grants as part of our current Third Sector Championing EDI Grant Scheme, so far three have completed work in support of removing barriers to counselling therapy for people from racialised communities. This scheme is due to complete in November 2026, with an evaluation report compiled shortly after.

Our current equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategy ends in spring 2026. Work will continue with a new strategy called 'Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging' (DEIB), which will shape our focus moving forward to allow better reflection on what drives fair access to counselling and psychotherapy. You can find more about this work on our EDI web page.Ìý

Our ongoing commitment

We’ll continue sending you the workforce mapping survey once a year, when you renew your membership. The next survey is due to go out soon, so please keep an eye out.

Your responses ensure we have the most up-to-date member information to support our campaigning and lobbying work. They also help us assess whether our EDI efforts are making a positive impact on diversifying our membership.

Your feedback is vital to helping us understand who our members are, and we encourage you to complete the survey when you receive it. As part of the survey, you’ll be asked if you’d like to consent to linking your demographic data to your member record. If you agree, we’ll use this information to further improve our services and enhance your member experience.

*Changes identified between two surveys should be interpreted with caution and don’t represent statistically significant differences. It’s not possible for us to determine if respondents were the same over the two years, and so we can only say there are some slight differences in reporting, which may or may not reflect ‘real’ change. However, these findings are useful to understand the working lives of our members and add some narrative to our findings.

ÌÇÐĹÙÍø Working Practices survey report 2025 (PDF 338KB)

ÌÇÐĹÙÍø Working Practices survey report 2025 (docx 133KB)