As a therapist, basically someone who asks other people questions for a living, I love to pay attention to what kinds of questions people ask me as a therapist. Like not only my clients, but also just my friends and general people who I meet. And there are two questions that I am always asked.
One of them is: do you really care? Do you actually care about your clients?
The other is: for £70 an hour (pretty much what people charge in the UK), aren't you just in it for the money?
I get it. £70 an hour is quite a bit of money, especially for a client to be paying.
So are we just in it for the money? That's definitely something I feel I can talk to.
Let's talk about money. Imagine a therapist. What they are earning, right? Imagine like a pretty successful therapist, who works full time in private practice. They have their own business. They're charging what they want, and they're pretty committed to the job. Imagine that this person works 48 weeks per year. They might be getting 20 holiday days/sick days a year. They do, let's say about 18 sessions a week, which some people might say is a lot, some people might say is really not much. According to the BACP here in the UK, you're only allowed to do about 20. So let's say that they do about 18, not 20, because people cancel, there's high seasons and low seasons. An average of 18 sessions a week and they charge, let's say £60 an hour on average.
48 hours, 18 sessions per week, 60 pounds an hour.
Our therapist is earning £51,840 pounds a year in their business.
Not bad! Pretty good!
But this is a business, so they have expenses. So let's say that our therapist pays annually...
£12,000 a year in rent for their little office.
£200 a year on Zoom (or some kind of conferencing platform).
£250 a year on a governing body membership.
£1200 a year on supervision.
£500 a year on continued professional development.
£40 a year on the ICO (the Information Commissioner's Office), because we hold people's data,
£200 a year on public liability insurance.
£1200 a year on personal insurances like critical illness cover/ income protection etc.
Let's say, £2400 a year is contributed to a pension. Which might sound like a lot, but it's only 4.6%, which really isn't a lot(!)
These expenses come to £17,990.
I have not included marketing efforts! Our imaginary therapist does not have a website or professional email, they don't have business cards, they're not spending a penny on CRMs or other kind of things that therapists in business need. So our therapist is paying roughly £17,990 and that's an approx minimum.
(I put £12,000 in rent so we could remove that if our therapist was only working online).
You'll remember they were earning £51,840 and we're taking away £17,990. Now our therapist is earning £33,350.
Note - this is a top notch therapist. They're working full time, they're doing very well, they're working hard. This is a full workload for a therapist and it's all word of mouth!
It doesn't end here because £33,350 is not including tax.
This hardworking therapist has also got to pay their tax, their national insurance contributions in the UK, I'm going to assume that this person is a well educated therapist
because they're doing a really good job. So they have their student loan and I'm giving them Plan 2 (undergraduate loan) and a postgraduate loan.
According to www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk from £33,350 after tax, our therapist has now put in their pocket £26,367
A therapist who's going a really good job, maxed out on clients and earning £60 an hour on average is putting in their pocket a little bit more than £26,000
To go back to that question, are you just in it for the money?
Counselling is a labour of love. Like, labor! This is a job. A labour of love.
Nobody does this for the money. A person only does this if they actually care about the other person in front of them!
Charging £70 an hour, are therapists just "in it" for the money? Nobody's in it for the money.
Written by Lily Llewellyn, a full-time therapist in private practice
March 6th 2025
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