Private practice in the UK: key statistics (2026)

Figures checked July 2026. Free to cite with a link to this page.

Three numbers define UK private practice in 2026: 52,017 counsellors and psychotherapists on the BACP’s accredited register, 66.2 per cent of BACP members earning £30,000 or less from counselling work, and a typical £500 to £1,200 first-year startup cost. Every figure below is sourced and dated.

How many counsellors and psychotherapists are there in the UK?

52,017 people were on the BACP’s Professional Standards Authority accredited register as of 1 January 2024, making it comfortably the largest register in the profession. Source: PSA accreditation renewal report, February 2025. Checked July 2026.

More than 50,000 is the BACP’s own self-stated membership figure. Source: BACP, Information about BACP. Checked July 2026.

11,573 practitioners were on the NCPS accredited register as of 23 October 2024. Source: PSA accreditation renewal report, November 2024. Checked July 2026.

Around 12,000 individual members belong to UKCP, the main psychotherapy body. Source: UKCP homepage, which states “12K individual members”. Checked July 2026.

How many new therapists qualify each year?

16,000 candidates register each year with CPCAB, the UK’s only awarding body run by counsellors, across more than 200 training centres. It is the best available proxy for the size of the training pipeline. Source: CPCAB, About us. Checked July 2026.

What do counsellors actually earn?

The BACP’s workforce mapping survey (October 2023 to September 2024, 4,028 respondents) is the most robust income data in the profession. Source for all four figures: BACP workforce survey report and summary page. Checked July 2026.

66.2 per cent of respondents earn £30,000 a year or less from counselling work.

31.3 per cent earn £12,500 a year or less, below the income tax personal allowance.

31.5 per cent agreed they could financially sustain themselves through counselling work, down around five percentage points on the previous year.

21 per cent of respondents work as supervisors, the most common way experienced practitioners add income.

What is the biggest challenge in private practice?

Finding clients, or expanding a private practice, is the challenge BACP members report most often, ahead of workload and financial pressures, in the BACP’s 2025 membership survey. Source: BACP membership survey 2025 results. Checked July 2026. It is consistent with the workforce survey finding that fewer than a third of members can sustain themselves financially through counselling.

What do therapists charge per session?

£40 to £60 per session is what more than half of therapists listed on the BACP directory advertise. Source: BACP, How to get therapy. Checked July 2026.

£50 to £80 outside London and £70 to £100 or more in London are the typical counselling fee ranges we see across the major directories, with psychotherapists and CBT therapists charging towards the top of each range. Source: Therapy Support analysis of directory listings, July 2026.

What does it cost to start a private practice?

£500 to £1,200 covers the regulatory and infrastructure essentials in year one for most counsellors. Source: Therapy Support startup cost analysis, July 2026, built from the verified line items below.

£52 is the ICO annual data protection fee for tier 1 micro organisations, which includes sole-trader therapists, with a £5 discount for paying by direct debit. Source: ICO, Guide to the data protection fee. Checked July 2026.

£80 to £200 a year is the typical range for professional indemnity and public liability insurance for a sole practitioner. Source: Therapy Support market survey of specialist insurers, July 2026.

£600 to £1,200 a year is a typical supervision spend, based on £40 to £60 per session at the monthly frequency professional bodies expect. Source: Therapy Support analysis, July 2026.

£154 to £216 a year covers individual membership of a professional body, depending on the body and membership grade. Sources: BACP membership pages and NCPS. Checked July 2026.

What do the big directories cost?

£24.50 a month is Counselling Directory’s rolling monthly plan, or about £245 a year on the annual option. Source: Counselling Directory join page. Checked July 2026.

£19.95 a month is Psychology Today UK’s listing fee, charged only after six free months for new members, with no contract. Source: Psychology Today UK sign-up page. Checked July 2026.

How long does it take to fill a caseload?

Three to six months is the typical time for a new private practitioner to build a working caseload, based on the practitioner reports we gather; therapists with strong referral networks fill faster, and those relying on directories alone sit at the slow end. Source: Therapy Support practitioner research, July 2026.

Citing this page

All third-party figures link to primary sources with the date we last checked them. We re-verify every April and October. Cite as: Therapy Support, “Private practice in the UK: key statistics”, therapy-support.co.uk/guide/statistics/.