Job market
Music therapist jobs in the UK
Music therapists usually start on NHS band 6, which pays £39,959 in England for 2026/27, 112 NHS organisations of the kinds that employ them sit across 11 regions and nations, and 5,960 people hold the registration. What a first post involves, who hires in each region, what it pays there, and where the vacancies are actually advertised.
What a first music therapist post looks like
Almost every newly qualified music therapist post in the NHS is advertised at band 6, and band 6 means the same thing everywhere: £39,959 at the bottom of the band rising to £48,117 at the top in England for 2026/27. Employers cannot pay above the band to compete for you, so what actually differs between two adverts at the same band is the work, the supervision and the place.
A first post here is usually not rotational. You are appointed to a specific service — a defined service such as a learning disability team, child and adolescent mental health services, a neuro-rehabilitation unit, a hospice or a special school — and you build your caseload within it rather than moving through a sequence of placements. That has a real consequence for how you choose: the first job shapes your specialism far more directly than it does in the rotational professions, and a post that is single-handed or split across sites puts more weight on what supervision and peer support the employer can actually offer you. Ask about that at interview; it is the question new registrants most often wish they had asked.
Whichever shape the post takes, the first year is a preceptorship year in all but name. Most employers run a structured programme for newly qualified staff — protected supervision, a competency framework and a named practice educator — and the quality of that programme varies far more between organisations than the pay does. It is a fair thing to ask about before you accept, and a better basis for choosing than the job title.
What it pays across the four nations
Each nation publishes its own Agenda for Change circular, so the figures diverge. Registration is UK-wide, so these are genuinely comparable options.
| Nation | Pay year | Band 6 start | Band 6 start | Band 7 top |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 2026/27 | £39,959 | £39,959 | £56,515 |
| Northern Ireland | 2025/26 | £38,682 | £38,682 | £54,710 |
| Scotland | 2026/27 | £43,231 | £43,231 | £61,466 |
| Wales | 2026/27 | £40,559 | £40,559 | £57,365 |
Posts in the Inner London high cost area zone add 20% of basic pay on top , with a floor of £5,794 and a ceiling of £8,746 (2026/27). See the London page for how that changes the comparison.
- Regulator
- Health and Care Professions Council
- Protected title
- Music therapist
- Usual entry band
- Band 6
- SOC 2020 code
- 2229
- Professional body
- British Association for Music Therapy
- Common settings
- NHS acute trust, NHS mental health trust, hospices and palliative care, special schools and early years settings and day centres
Where the employers are
NHS organisations of a type that employs music therapists, the approved courses in the same region, and what band 6 pays under that nation’s pay circular. Posts sit mostly in mental health and specialist services, and a large share of the profession works outside the NHS altogether — in schools, hospices, prisons and the third sector.
| Region | Nation | NHS organisations | Approved courses | Published workforce (FTE) | Band 6 start | Median full-time pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scotland | Scotland | 21 | 1 | Not published | £43,231 | £39,719 |
| North West | England | 15 | 0 | 3 | £39,959 | £37,361 |
| London | England | 12 | 3 | 20 | £39,959 | £49,692 |
| South East | England | 11 | 0 | 18 | £39,959 | £39,983 |
| Wales | Wales | 11 | 1 | Not published | £40,559 | £35,796 |
| West Midlands | England | 11 | 0 | 3 | £39,959 | £37,064 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | England | 8 | 0 | 2 | £39,959 | £35,682 |
| East Midlands | England | 7 | 1 | Not published | £39,959 | £35,600 |
| East of England | England | 7 | 1 | 5 | £39,959 | £38,597 |
| South West | England | 7 | 1 | 3 | £39,959 | £37,195 |
| North East | England | 2 | 0 | 1 | £39,959 | £34,403 |
Organisation counts are the NHS bodies in the dataset whose type plausibly employs this profession. They are not vacancy counts, and a large organisation may hold many posts while a small one holds none. The full-time equivalent column sums only the organisations that publish a workforce return for this profession, so it is a floor rather than a total. Median full-time pay is the ONS whole-economy figure for the region, not an NHS figure — it is here as the benchmark to read a band against.
Workforce and earnings, UK-wide
These are national figures. Nothing published at profession level is broken down by region, so they set the scale of the labour market rather than describing any one part of it.
| 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 | 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 | United Kingdom | 31 March 2026 |
| Median gross annual pay, full-time employee jobs (ASHE Table 14.7a, SOC 2020 2229) | £37,599 | United Kingdom | 2025 |
| Mean gross annual pay, full-time employee jobs (ASHE Table 14.7a, SOC 2020 2229) | £39,897 | United Kingdom | 2025 |
The ONS median of £37,599 for full-time employees covers every sector, not the NHS alone, and it covers everyone in the occupation rather than people at the start of it. Read next to the band 6 starting figure of £39,959, it tells you something useful: the gap between the two is roughly what career progression through the bands is worth, because most people in this occupation are several years past their first post.
Two counts of the same workforce rarely agree, and it is worth knowing why. The register count (5,960) is everyone entitled to practise, including people working part-time, working abroad, on a career break or not practising at all. The employment estimate (51,800) is a survey of people actually in the job. The difference between them is the slack in the system — and it is the reason a register that looks large does not necessarily mean a job market that is hard to enter.
Where the actual vacancies are
This page carries no live adverts. The NHS Jobs adverts API is authenticated and publishes no terms of reuse, and the commercial aggregators attach conditions an open-data site cannot meet honestly, so rather than show you a partial or stale list, here is where employers actually post music therapists vacancies.
NHS Jobs
Search "Music therapist" and filter by band. This is where NHS England trusts advertise, and for most of them it is the only place.
HealthJobsUK / Trac
The recruitment system many trusts and health boards run on. Search it separately — it does not mirror NHS Jobs, and some organisations post only here.
NHS Scotland recruitment
One shared national system for all NHS Scotland boards. Scottish posts do not appear on NHS Jobs at all.
HSC Recruitment
Health and Social Care Northern Ireland recruits centrally for the six HSC trusts and the ambulance service.
British Association for Music Therapy
The professional body for music therapists. Professional bodies carry specialist and non-NHS vacancies that never reach a general board, alongside preceptorship and first-post guidance for new registrants.
Find an apprenticeship
An apprenticeship is a job, so it is advertised as a vacancy rather than listed as a course. One standard lead to registration by this route.
More on music therapists
- What a music therapist does — The profession hub
- Music therapist pay — Band by band, all four nations
- Music therapist courses — 8 approved courses
- Routes in — Degree, master’s or apprenticeship
- Arts therapist — Earn while you train
- NHS employer directory — Every trust and health board
Job markets for related professions
- Art therapist jobs — Starts at band 6
- Dramatherapist jobs — Starts at band 6
- Occupational therapist jobs — Starts at band 5
- Dietitian jobs — Starts at band 5
Where this page’s data comes from
Vacancy sources are listed because this page describes their licence position. No live advert content is republished here.
- HCPC register summary and registrant snapshots (aggregate)Health and Care Professions Council · No open licence stated; HCPC copyright · checked 3 September 2026
- NHS Jobs adverts APINHS Business Services Authority / NHS England · No public licence or terms of use located · checked 3 September 2026
- NHS Vacancy StatisticsNHS England (published on digital.nhs.uk) · Open Government Licence v3.0 · checked 3 September 2026Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Find an apprenticeship recruitment and display-adverts APIsDepartment for Education (Apprenticeship Service) · Open Government Licence v3.0 · checked 3 September 2026Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) via NomisOffice for National Statistics, delivered by Nomis (Durham University) · Open Government Licence v3.0 · checked 3 September 2026Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Agenda for Change pay scales and NHS terms and conditions handbookNHS Employers (NHS Confederation) · No open licence stated; NHS Employers copyright · checked 3 September 2026
- NHS Workforce StatisticsNHS England (published on digital.nhs.uk) · Open Government Licence v3.0 · checked 3 September 2026Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- HCPC approved programmes directoryHealth and Care Professions Council · No open licence stated; HCPC copyright · checked 3 September 2026
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