Art therapist courses in the UK

How to read this list

Every course below leads to eligibility for registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), which is what you need before you can work — and use the protected title "Art therapist" — as a art therapist in the UK. Approval is the floor, not a ranking: an approved course has been assessed against the regulator's standards, so any of these will qualify you. What differs is the route, the length, where you will be sent on placement and what the university asks for at entry.

All 11 courses follow one route — pre-registration master’s. That narrows the decision usefully: the choice in front of you is which university and which part of the country, not which kind of programme. Whichever route you take, the programme has to build in 950 hours of practice placement, so the geography of a course is a real part of the decision — you will spend a substantial share of the degree away from campus in clinical settings.

Provision spans England (8), Scotland (1), Northern Ireland (1) and Wales (1). Registration is UK-wide, so where you study does not limit where you can work afterwards — but fees, the student finance body and the bursary or learning support you can claim are all set nation by nation, and some schemes attach a commitment to work in that nation after you qualify. Read the funding pages before you rule a nation in or out on cost.

7 of these 11 courses publish a typical offer in a form this site can cite. None of these courses carries a UCAS code in the dataset, which usually means direct application to the university. Treat every requirement here as a starting point and confirm it on the university's own page — offers move year to year, and most providers also ask for an occupational health check, an enhanced DBS or equivalent disclosure, and often relevant work experience or a period of observation.