Allied Health Professions

Professions

The UK allied health professions

15 professions, 677 approved pre-registration courses and 101 universities — ranked here by how much approved provision each profession actually has, so you can see at a glance which are wide doors and which have a handful of places a year.

15 Professions covered Each with its own hub
677 Approved courses Pre-registration, all UK nations
101 Universities With at least one approved course
£32,073 Band 5 starting salary England, 2026/27, before high cost area supplements

What counts as an allied health profession

The allied health professions are the regulated clinical professions that sit outside medicine, nursing, dentistry and pharmacy. They are the people who assess and treat you rather than prescribe for you: the physiotherapist who gets you walking after a hip replacement, the speech and language therapist who works on a child's language before school, the radiographer who takes the image the surgeon relies on, the paramedic who makes the first decision at the door.

What they have in common matters more than what separates them. Almost all of them are regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council, which means the job title is protected in law and you cannot use it until you are on the register. Registration comes from completing a programme the regulator has approved — not from any degree in a related subject — which is why the course lists on this site are the practical starting point rather than a prospectus. And almost all of them are employed on the same NHS pay structure, Agenda for Change, which is why a newly qualified dietitian and a newly qualified occupational therapist are paid the same amount on their first day.

The differences worth weighing up are how many approved courses exist, how many places those courses have, which routes in a profession actually offers, and what the work looks like day to day. The table below covers the first three. Each profession hub covers the fourth, alongside the funding you can claim and what the pay ladder looks like once you are qualified.

Every profession, by how much provision exists

Ordered by the number of approved pre-registration courses. A profession with a large course count is not an easier one to get into — it is a bigger one, with more places and more universities running it.

BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a physiotherapist

People of all ages with musculoskeletal pain and injury, neurological conditions, respiratory and cardiac disease, frailty and falls risk, long-term conditions, and those recovering from surgery or critical illness.

139 courses68 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
OTBScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become an occupational therapist

People of all ages recovering from surgery, stroke or injury, and people living with mental illness, learning disability, dementia, long-term conditions or physical disability who want to live more independently.

129 courses56 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
BScApprenticeshipMSc pre-reg

Become a paramedic

People of all ages with acute illness, injury, mental health crisis or long-term conditions who call for urgent help, from cardiac arrest and major trauma to falls, breathing problems and end-of-life care at home.

80 courses51 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a diagnostic radiographer

Patients of all ages, from newborns to older people, who need imaging for diagnosis, screening, monitoring or image-guided treatment, including trauma, cancer, cardiac and emergency patients.

67 courses37 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
ODPBScApprenticeshipMSc pre-reg

Become an operating department practitioner

Patients of all ages undergoing planned or emergency surgery and other procedures requiring anaesthesia, alongside surgeons, anaesthetists, theatre nurses and support workers.

59 courses30 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
RDBScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a dietitian

People of all ages with medical conditions affected by diet — including digestive, kidney, metabolic and swallowing disorders, malnutrition, food allergy, obesity and eating disorders — as well as healthy populations.

57 courses31 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
SLTBScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a speech and language therapist

Children and adults with speech, language, communication or swallowing needs, including people after stroke or brain injury, autistic people, people with learning disabilities, progressive neurological conditions, head and neck cancer and voice disorders.

51 courses29 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a podiatrist

People of all ages with foot and lower limb problems, particularly those living with diabetes, circulatory or neurological disease and arthritis, children with walking or lower limb pain, and athletes and dancers.

31 courses17 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become a therapeutic radiographer

Adults and children having radiotherapy for cancer, and their families and carers, throughout planning, daily treatment, side-effect management and follow-up.

18 courses13 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
BScMSciApprenticeship

Become an osteopath

Adults, older people, children and babies with musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction, sports and occupational injuries, pregnancy-related pain and chronic pain conditions.

12 courses8 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
MSc pre-regL7 apprenticeship

Become an art therapist

Children, young people, adults and older people living with mental health difficulties, trauma, learning disabilities, neurodivergence, dementia, life-limiting illness or emotional and behavioural difficulties.

11 courses11 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 6
MSc pre-regL7 apprenticeship

Become a music therapist

People of all ages with emotional or mental health difficulties, learning or physical disabilities, developmental conditions including autism, neurological conditions, dementia, and life-limiting or palliative illness.

8 courses8 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 6
BScMSc pre-regApprenticeship

Become an orthoptist

Babies, children and adults with squint, amblyopia, double vision, reduced or unstable vision, and patients with stroke, acquired brain injury, thyroid eye disease, glaucoma, diabetes or neurological conditions.

6 courses4 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5
MSc pre-regL7 apprenticeship

Become a dramatherapist

People of all ages — children, young people, adults and older people — with emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, neurological conditions or serious illness.

5 courses5 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 6
BScApprenticeshipMSc pre-reg

Become a prosthetist/orthotist

People with limb loss including military veterans and people with vascular disease or diabetes, children with cerebral palsy and congenital conditions, and adults with arthritis, neurological conditions, sports injuries or spinal deformity.

4 courses4 universitiesApprenticeship routeStarts at band 5

Side by side

Course and university counts are of approved pre-registration programmes currently listed by the regulator. Blank cells mean the field is not published, not zero.

Approved provision by profession
Profession Courses Universities Nations Routes in
Physiotherapist 139 68 4 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship, MSci
Occupational therapist 129 56 4 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship, MSci
Paramedic 80 51 4 BSc, Apprenticeship, MSc pre-reg, MSci
Diagnostic radiographer 67 37 4 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship, MSci
Operating department practitioner 59 30 3 BSc, Apprenticeship, MSc pre-reg
Dietitian 57 31 4 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship, MSci
Speech and language therapist 51 29 4 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship, MSci
Podiatrist 31 17 4 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship, MSci
Therapeutic radiographer 18 13 4 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship
Osteopath 12 8 2 BSc, MSci, Apprenticeship, MSc pre-reg
Art therapist 11 11 4 MSc pre-reg, L7 apprenticeship
Music therapist 8 8 3 MSc pre-reg, L7 apprenticeship
Orthoptist 6 4 2 BSc, MSc pre-reg, Apprenticeship
Dramatherapist 5 5 2 MSc pre-reg, L7 apprenticeship
Prosthetist/orthotist 4 4 2 BSc, Apprenticeship, MSc pre-reg

Choosing between them

Most people arrive at this decision from one of two directions. Either you know the setting you want — an emergency department, a school, a community team, a diagnostic imaging suite — and you are working out which profession puts you there, or you know the kind of contact you want with people and you are working backwards from that. Both are better guides than salary, because every one of these professions is paid on the same national scale and climbs the same bands — the profession you choose changes the work far more than it changes the money.

The variables that genuinely differ are competition for places, how far you will have to travel for placements, whether a pre-registration master's exists if you already have a degree, and whether an employer near you sponsors apprentices. All four are on the profession hubs, and none of them is visible on a university prospectus.

If you are still deciding, read two or three hubs side by side before you look at any single course. The course you pick matters much less than the profession you pick.

15 Professions with an apprenticeship
England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland Nations with approved courses
£56,515 Top of band 7 England, 2026/27

Compare across professions

Where this page’s data comes from

Counts on this page are derived from the approved-programme records held by the regulators. Allied Health Professions publishes no figure it cannot attribute.