How to become a school counsellor

To become a school counsellor you need a professional-level counselling qualification, membership of a professional body that holds an accredited register, and training or experience in working with children and young people. Many employers also ask for accreditation, which comes after a period of supervised practice once you have qualified. School counsellors are employed directly by schools and academy trusts, by council counselling services, and by charities that provide counselling to schools. Pay varies a lot because of that mix.

Who employs school counsellors

In England there is no legal duty to provide counselling in schools, so it depends on what each school or trust chooses to buy. Some schools employ a counsellor directly, usually on a support staff contract. Others commission a local charity or social enterprise, which employs the counsellors and sends them into several schools a week. Some councils run their own service. A smaller group work self-employed, paid per session by the school.

In Wales, under the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, councils must make reasonable provision for an independent counselling service for children and young people, including a service on the site of each maintained secondary school. That makes council-run or council-commissioned counselling more common in Wales. Scotland has funded access to counselling through secondary schools, and Northern Ireland runs an independent counselling service for pupils in post-primary schools. In all three nations, the employer could be the council, the education authority or a provider contracted by it.

In England, the NHS-linked mental health support teams that now cover many schools employ education mental health practitioners, which is a different job with a different training route. See the education mental health practitioner profile for that.

Qualifications and accreditation

“Counsellor” is not a protected title in the UK, but employers in schools set clear standards. The usual path looks like this:

1. An introductory counselling course or certificate, to check the work suits you.
2. A professional-level qualification, such as a diploma in therapeutic counselling, a foundation degree, degree or postgraduate course, including supervised placement hours with real clients.
3. Membership of a professional body with an accredited register, such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
4. Further training in working with children and young people, if your core course was adult-focused.
5. Accreditation with your professional body, after a period of supervised practice. Many school posts list this as essential or desirable.

The National Careers Service counsellor profile sets out the general route. Training is usually self-funded and can take several years part-time, so check that a course leads to the membership you need before you enrol.

What the work involves

School counselling is mostly one-to-one sessions with pupils, often weekly and sometimes time-limited to a set number of sessions. Pupils come with anxiety, low mood, family breakdown, bereavement, self-harm, friendship problems and much else. You work with the school to find a private room, agree referral routes and fit sessions around lessons without making pupils miss the same subject every week.

School counselling differs most from private practice on confidentiality. You need to be clear with pupils about its limits, and you have to pass safeguarding concerns to the designated safeguarding lead in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education. Professional bodies expect practising counsellors to have regular clinical supervision. Schools that employ a counsellor directly should provide or pay for it, so ask about this at interview.

You also work with pastoral teams, the SENCO and outside services such as child and adolescent mental health services. The pastoral manager profile describes the team you are most likely to deal with day to day.

Pay

There is no national pay scale for school counsellors. A school or council employing you directly may grade the post on the NJC pay spine through its own job evaluation. Charities set their own salaries, and self-employed counsellors agree a sessional fee with each school.

As a worked example only, say a school grades a counsellor post at SCP 25, which is £37,563 full time in 2026/27 after the 3.3 per cent NJC award. If the post is term-time only for 39 weeks, the NJC advisory model gives 86.778 per cent of full-time pay, or about £32,596 a year, before any reduction for fewer hours. Our NJC pay spine guide has every point, and the take-home pay calculator shows what that leaves after deductions.

Directly employed staff in schools and councils usually join the Local Government Pension Scheme, where the 2026/27 main section rate on pay from £29,001 to £47,300 is 6.5 per cent. Charity employers use a workplace pension under auto-enrolment, with a minimum total contribution of 8 per cent of qualifying earnings. Self-employed counsellors arrange their own pension and pay their own tax through Self Assessment.

Checks before you start

You will need an enhanced DBS check with a children’s barred list check, which costs £41.00 in England and Wales from 5 October 2026. In Scotland, joining the PVG scheme costs £59, and in Northern Ireland an enhanced AccessNI check costs £32. Directly employed posts are advertised by schools, trusts and councils, and you will find some under school support jobs.