Principal Psychologist, Psychotherapist & Psychological Therapist


Company:	South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Salary:	£75,328 - £86,114 per annum inclusive of HCAS (Inner)
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	London, SE5 8AZ
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	9 Nov 2026
Closing date:	11 Dec 2026

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Summary

A Vacancy at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivatedPrincipal Psychologist/Psychotherapist/Arts Psychotherapist/Family Therapist(Band 8b, 1.0 WTE, permanent) to join theMaudsley Adult Acute and Crisis Psychology and Psychotherapy Service. The person should already have extensive experience of working in acute and crisis services.

This role is split between theSouthwark Home Treatment Team (HTT)and adult acute mental health wards. You will work with people experiencing severe and enduring mental health difficulties, including schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, psychosis, and personality disorder, often alongside trauma, self-harm, suicidality, and other complex challenges.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced clinician to contribute to high-quality psychological care across acute and crisis services.

You will provide highly specialist psychological assessments, formulations, and brief interventions for service users admitted to inpatient wards or supported by the Southwark HTT.

A key part of the role will be supporting multidisciplinary teams to deliver psychologically informed care, including the development of behavioural support and risk management plans. As aPrincipal Therapist, you will provide leadership and supervision to Junior Psychological Therapists, trainees, and Clinical Associate Psychologists.

You will deliver culturally responsive interventions for service users, carers, and families, and contribute to quality improvement, research, audit, and service development across the acute and crisis pathway.

This is a varied and rewarding role offering opportunities to further develop your clinical, leadership, and service development skills, supported by regular supervision and an experienced multidisciplinary team.

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust provide the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK as well as substance misuse services for people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. We work closely with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London and are part of King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre. There are very few organisations in the world that have such wide-ranging capabilities working with mental illness. Our scope is unique because it is built on three major foundations: care and treatment, science and research, and training.

By coming to work at our Trust, you will gain experience of being part of an organisation with a rich history and international reputation in mental health care. You will have access to professional development and learning opportunities and have the chance to work alongside people who are world leaders in their field. The Trust delivered more than 14,000 training experiences in 2014: providing an extensive range of learning opportunities for staff at all levels. In addition, our working relationship with King's Health Partners allows those working at the Trust to get involved in academic research.

Detailed JD can be found under Documents.

· To develop, co-ordinate and ensure the systematic provision of a psychological therapy service and personally provide highly specialist clinical input.

· To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment.

· To provide clinical supervision and consultation as appropriate, functioning as a lead specialist

· To ensure that systems are in place and working effectively for the clinical and professional supervision and support of other psychological professionals in the service.

· To promote service evaluation, audit, research and policy development.

· To work as an autonomous professional within registration body guidelines and codes of conduct, guided by principles and policies or procedures of the service, taking responsibility for interpreting policies within defined parameters.

· To agree outcomes/results with clinical/professional lead and to decide how they are best achieved.

· To support the coordination of staff support within their area, working closely with Corporate Psychology and Psychotherapy to support colleagues and ensure all staff in SLaM have access to evidence based support. To participate, as a recipient, in staff support work when appropriate.

This advert closes on Monday 23 Nov 2026

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