Paediatric jobs

Paediatric jobs: frequently asked questions

Welcome to our paediatric jobs page, featuring the very latest paediatric roles across the UK, as well as frequently asked questions below.

What are paediatric jobs?

Roles in paediatrics involve the treatment of medical conditions affecting infants, children and young people.

The most well-known job within paediatrics is a paediatrician: a doctor who specialises in diagnosing and treating children. But there are dozens of other roles associated with paediatrics that covers lots of different levels of experience and qualifications. These include paediatric physiotherapists, paediatric occupational therapists, paediatric speech therapists and paediatric pharmacists.

A job in paediatrics can therefore be within a hospital, a specialist care facility, the wider community or at patient’s homes. It can also be in the NHS or the private sector.

What are the responsibilities in a paediatrics role?

Of course, the responsibilities of a paediatric physiotherapist vary widely from those of a paediatric pharmacist, for example.

But very broadly, paediatrics roles may involve:

• Assessing and diagnosing children with illnesses

• Referring patients for specialist treatment

• Prescribing and advising on specialist medication

• Writing patient notes and producing medical reports

• Monitoring patients and administering medicine

• Working closely with family members to explain conditions and treatments

Your working hours will vary according to the role and the setting, but may will be shift-based and include evenings, nights and weekends.

How do you get a job in paediatrics?

There are multiple career paths for the various roles available in paediatrics.

To become a paediatrician however, the route required is the same for any specialist doctor. You’ll need to achieve a 5-year degree in medicine that’s recognised by the General Medical Council, and then a 2-year foundation course of general training where you work in multiple settings and placements.

Thereafter, you’ll need to accumulate 4 to 7 years of specialist training.

Other paediatrics specialisms require a path similar to their associated area of practice.

In terms of skills, above all you’ll need a huge amount of sensitivity, patience and emotional resilience in what can be a very challenging medical specialism.

How much do paediatrics roles pay?

Inevitably, pay varies enormously depending on the kind of paediatrics career you pursue.

Paediatricians, like all doctors, achieve very different salaries depending on where they are in their career. When they first qualify as a junior doctor and begin their rotational training in the NHS, they earn around £28,000 a year. Meanwhile, an experienced consultant could earn in excess of £100,000 a year.

That means finding an average salary is quite misleading, although you could probably say it’s somewhere between £60,000 and £80,000 a year, once fully qualified.

Paediatric roles are of course available in the private sector too, and here, without a formal banding, pay is even harder to determine. But broadly speaking, it’s similar to earnings in the NHS.

Find your next paediatric job today

View our latest roles above, or if you can’t find what you’re looking for, create an account, register your CV here and we’ll send you the latest positions as soon as we get them.