Allied Health Professions

Mental health trust · Southall, London

Music therapist at West London NHS Trust

West London NHS Trust employs 5.2 full-time equivalent music therapists as at 31 December 2025. Working as a music therapist at West London NHS Trust in Southall, London means a mental health caseload across inpatient units, community mental health teams, crisis services and, in most organisations, child and adolescent and secure services. Band 6 starts at £39,959 on the England 2026/27 scale.

Music therapistBand 6 entryEngland
5.2 Music therapists employed here Full-time equivalent, 31 December 2025
£39,959 Band 6 starting salary England, 2026/27 scale
£49,692 Median pay, all occupations London, 2025 — the benchmark, not an NHS figure
Not published Staff survey response rate Not in the open dataset for this organisation

The job at West London NHS Trust

Music therapists use improvisation, songwriting, listening and shared music-making as the main means of communication with people who find talking difficult or impossible. No musical skill is needed from the person attending. Sessions are planned around agreed clinical aims and may be one to one or in groups. Alongside direct work, music therapists assess referrals, choose and maintain instruments, record and review sessions, keep clinical notes, take supervision, and coach families, teachers and ward staff in using music between sessions. 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.

At a mental health trust such as West London NHS Trust, that work means a mental health caseload across inpatient units, community mental health teams, crisis services and, in most organisations, child and adolescent and secure services. Rotations here tend to move between inpatient and community teams rather than between body systems, and supervision arrangements matter more than in almost any other setting. Across the profession as a whole, music therapists work in settings including NHS acute trust, NHS mental health trust, hospices and palliative care, special schools and early years settings and day centres — an organisation of this type will run some of those services and not others, which is why two posts with the same job title in the same city can be very different jobs.

Pay is not an employer decision. Agenda for Change is negotiated nationally and set separately in each of the four nations, so West London NHS Trust pays band 6 exactly what every other NHS employer in England pays it: £39,959 at the bottom of the band on the 2026/27 scale. For context, median full-time pay across all occupations in London was £49,692 in 2025. What genuinely differs between two employers is the caseload, how rotations are structured, how much protected time you get for supervision and continuing professional development, how much band 6 progression is built into the establishment, and how far you travel between sites. Those are the questions worth asking at interview.

Employer
West London NHS Trust
Organisation type
Mental health trust
Based in
Southall
Region
London
Nation
England
Regulator
HCPC registration required
Usual starting band
Band 6
Full-time equivalent staff
5.2
Local courses
3 in London

Published workforce for this profession

Music therapist staff groups published for West London NHS Trust
Staff group Full-time equivalent As at
Allied Health Professionals: Music Therapist 5.2 31 December 2025

What you would be paid, band by band

England Agenda for Change rates, 2026/27 — the same at every NHS employer in the nation.

Agenda for Change pay for music therapists in England
Band Starting Point 2 Point 3 Top of band
Band 5 £32,073£34,592£39,043 £39,043
Band 6 Entry level £39,959£42,170£48,117 £48,117
Band 7 £49,387£51,932£56,515 £56,515
Band 8a £57,528£60,417£64,750 £64,750
£32,073 Band 5 · Newly qualified First post after registration, usually rotational.
£39,959 Band 6 · Specialist Typically two to four years in; a defined clinical specialty.
£49,387 Band 7 · Advanced or team lead Clinical leadership, complex caseload, supervision.
£57,528 Band 8a · Consultant or service lead Service-wide responsibility or consultant practice.

Music therapist pay in detail · The whole England scale · Band 6 music therapists

Where to train for this job near Southall

3 universities in London run an approved pre-registration course for music therapists. Placements are commissioned with the trusts and boards nearest the university, so these are the courses most likely to place students with West London NHS Trust, across pre-registration master’s routes.

Approved courses for music therapists in London
Course University Route Length
MA in Music Therapy Guildhall School of Music and Drama MSc pre-reg 2 years
Master of Music Therapy (Nordoff Robbins): Music, Health, Society Nordoff Robbins MSc pre-reg 2 years
MA Music Therapy (part-time) University of Roehampton MSc pre-reg 2 years

The national picture

UK-wide figures for the profession, not for this organisation.

Published national figures for music therapists
Measure Value Geography As at
HCPC registrants on the 'Art Therapists' part of the Register (all application routes) - a single register part shared by art-therapist, dramatherapist, music-therapist, so this count is not specific to one designated title 5,960 registrants United Kingdom (HCPC Register; includes registrants trained outside the UK) 1 April 2025
People in employment in the UK in SOC 2020 unit group 2229 (Therapy professionals n.e.c.), Annual Population Survey estimate 51,800 people in employment United Kingdom 31 March 2026
Median gross annual pay, full-time employee jobs (ASHE Table 14.7a, SOC 2020 2229) 37,599 GBP United Kingdom 2025
Mean gross annual pay, full-time employee jobs (ASHE Table 14.7a, SOC 2020 2229) 39,897 GBP United Kingdom 2025

Music therapists at other organisations in London

Same registration, same bands, different caseload — the organisation type is the variable, and the size of the establishment tells you how many colleagues and how many rotation slots sit behind the job title. The largest music therapists team published in London is West London NHS Trust, at 5.2 full-time equivalent.

Published establishments for music therapists at NHS organisations in London
Organisation Type Based in Full-time equivalent
West London NHS Trust This page Mental health trust Southall 5.2
North London NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust London 4.6
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust London 4
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust Specialist trust London 2.3
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust Beckenham 1.4
Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust Community trust London 1.3
South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust Mental health trust London 0.6
East London NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust London 0.5
North East London NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust Ilford 0.4

A blank establishment figure means the organisation did not return one for this profession, not that it employs nobody. Only organisations whose type runs this service are listed.

Other allied health professions at West London NHS Trust

Next steps

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