Government Occupational Psychology Profession

Occupational psychology is the government profession concerned with the performance of people at work and how individuals, groups and organisations behave.

Occupational psychology is concerned with the performance of people at work and with how individuals, groups, and organisations behave. We apply the science of psychology to improve the working experience for employees and the effectiveness of the organisation. It involves the application of scientific psychological knowledge within and across five work-related areas:

  1. Psychological assessment at work.
  2. Learning, training, and development.
  3. Leadership, engagement, and motivation.
  4. Wellbeing at work.
  5. Work design, organisational change and development.

You can find out more about the Government Occupational Psychology Profession at our Careers Hub Government Occupational Psychology – Hub | Civil Service Careers

The typical journey through our professional qualifications is shown below from Awareness, to Working, to Practitioner, to Expert. To become professionally and legally recognised many members of our profession complete a qualification to become a Chartered Psychologist and a Registered Occupational Psychologist. You can find out more about our qualification pathway below and in the Developing specialist skills within government: A guide to specialist training.

For learning outside core professional qualifications please explore the wider offer or contact your line manager for guidance. 

How to join us

We include in our profession anyone who holds a BSc (or equivalent) psychology and intends to complete, is currently undertaking, or who has completed a postgraduate (MSc) qualification in Occupational Psychology (or equivalent titled course).

If you are a current civil servant and meet these criteria, please contact government.occupationalpsychprofession@DWP.GOV.UK to request to join the profession.

The current Learning Frameworks contract is ending on 30 April 2026. This change will impact when you can book learning linked to our Professions pages. To support you with this transition, any courses impacted by the change will display a notice.

The final date for bookings is 30 April 2026, with learning required to start by 31 July 2026 and finish by 31 January 2027. After this deadline, new bookings will resume after the new contract starts.

These changes are happening across a series of waves and more information can be found here. The products in Wave 1 will not be available to book from 30 June 2025, and products in Wave 2 will not be available to book from 1 November 2025. The products in Wave 3 will need to start by 30 April 2026 and therefore we recommend bookings are made six weeks before this, by 19 March 2026.