How to become an optometrist

To become an optometrist you need a General Optical Council (GOC) approved master’s degree in optometry, a one-year supervised pre-registration placement and a pass in the GOC final assessment. Then you register with the GOC. The National Careers Service gives typical pay of £40,000 for a starter to £65,000 with experience, over 37 to 40 hours a week that can include evenings on shifts.

What an optometrist does

Optometrists examine eyes to find vision problems and spot signs of wider health conditions, with diabetes the example the National Careers Service gives. They draw up treatment plans, advise on eye care, and prescribe and fit glasses, medical contact lenses and low vision aids. Some run eye health clinics in hospitals and community settings. When a patient needs a specialist, the optometrist refers them, including to ophthalmologists (eye surgeons). Optometrists also supervise dispensing opticians and trainee optometrists.

The same page says you could work in an NHS or private hospital, a health centre, a GP practice or a store. Hospital and clinic posts exist alongside practice work.

Qualifications and training

The route has three steps:

1. A postgraduate master’s degree in optometry approved by the GOC.
2. A one-year pre-registration work placement under a registered optometrist.
3. The GOC final assessment.

The National Careers Service says university entry usually means five GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 including English, maths and science, plus three A levels (or equivalent) with at least one science. Each university sets its own offers, so check the course page for the grades it asks for.

If you already work as a dispensing optician, you can retrain, but the approved degree and the pre-registration year still apply. Our guide to how to become a dispensing optician covers that first role.

Registration and checks

You must be registered with the General Optical Council. Enhanced background checks apply because you may work with children and vulnerable adults. Our guide to DBS check levels explains what an enhanced check covers.

Getting experience first

The National Careers Service suggests volunteering in the NHS as a way to get healthcare experience, and says you can contact high street opticians directly about work experience schemes. Our guides to hospital work experience and volunteering for experience cover how to ask.

Where the career goes

With experience, the National Careers Service lists these options: specialising in age-related conditions such as macular degeneration or glaucoma, working with particular groups such as young children or people who are partially sighted, taking a senior management post in a hospital department, teaching optometry at university, or moving into eye health research.

Pay and employers

The pay range above is a typical figure from the National Careers Service, not a pay scale, and it varies with the employer. If you take an NHS hospital post, the advert shows the Agenda for Change band, and our NHS pay bands guide shows what each band pays in England. To see what a salary leaves after tax and pension, use the take-home pay calculator.

Two related eye and ear roles have different training routes: the orthoptist, who works on eye movement and vision problems, and the audiologist, who works on hearing.