Health and Medicine Careers: Explore Roles and Verify Registration Requirements

Health and medicine includes many different kinds of work: direct clinical care, diagnostics, healthcare science, pharmacy, ambulance services, therapy, support services, administration, technology and more. Exploring a health career is not the same as being eligible to practise in it.

Some occupations are statutorily regulated and require registration with a specific professional regulator; other health, support or wellbeing roles are not governed in the same way. This page therefore helps you identify a role and the right current source rather than giving a static SCP registration rulebook.

Example role families

• Medicine and dentistry: medical and dental careers with role-specific education, training and professional requirements.
• Nursing and midwifery: registered nursing and midwifery roles alongside healthcare-support pathways.
• Allied health professions: roles such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, radiography, dietetics, podiatry and speech and language therapy.
• Pharmacy: pharmacist, pharmacy technician and support roles with different responsibilities and requirements.
• Healthcare science and technology: laboratory, physiological, medical-technology and scientific roles across health services.
• Ambulance and urgent-care services: clinical, technical, call-handling and support roles.
• Healthcare support and service roles: patient support, administration, estates, digital, logistics and other work that contributes to care without all roles sharing the same registration route.

These are orientation categories, not an exhaustive list and not a statement that every role in a category has the same legal or professional status.

Separate career exploration from eligibility to practise

1. Choose the exact role. “Healthcare” is too broad to determine the qualification or registration route.
2. Use a current role source. Check duties, skills, qualifications, learning routes and recruitment information for the specific occupation.
3. Check whether the occupation is regulated. If it is, use the relevant statutory regulator for the current registration, education and protected-title requirements.
4. Do not transfer one profession's rules to another. A qualification or registration requirement for one role does not automatically apply to a support role, another profession or a wellbeing practice.
5. Build evidence relevant to the target. Caring experience, communication, science, teamwork, digital skills, service improvement, study, volunteering or paid work can all be useful when they genuinely match the role and its selection criteria.

NHSScotland Careers provides current role exploration, including skills and qualification information across clinical, scientific, pharmacy, support and service families. Use the live role page rather than treating SCP's examples as a current eligibility decision.

For professional-regulation questions, use the Professional Standards Authority's regulator information to identify the relevant statutory health and care regulator, then follow that regulator's current requirements. The PSA distinguishes regulated occupations from other register arrangements, so SCP should not imply that every health or wellbeing occupation has the same statutory registration status.

Evidence you can explore

Depending on the role, useful evidence may include communicating with people under pressure, following safety or confidentiality procedures, working accurately with information, applying scientific knowledge, collaborating across professions, supporting a person's needs, using clinical or technical systems, improving a service, reflecting on feedback or demonstrating reliable responsibility in a care environment.

Next proportionate research step: choose one health role, open its current NHSScotland Careers or other official role page, identify the qualification route and whether statutory registration applies, then separate what you can already evidence from what still needs verified training, experience or registration.

Return to Navigate Your Career to compare other job families, or use Career Resources for wider career-development support.

Boundary: SCP supports career research and reflective decision-making. It does not determine professional eligibility, provide clinical advice, or replace a regulator, employer, university or training provider.