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To practice as a podiatrist, you must be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). In order to register with the HCPC, you need to study for an approved degree level qualification in podiatry. Degree courses take three or four years, either full time or part time. If you have a relevant first degree, you can apply for a 2-year Masters programme in podiatry. A degree standard apprenticeship in podiatry has also been approved.

Most podiatrists in the NHS work standard hours, which are likely to be around 37.5 a week. They may work some evenings. Your starting salary will be band 5 of the Agenda for Change pay rates. Some podiatrists have to travel between client appointments.

Skills needed include being happy to handle other people’s feet, being good listeners, understanding good manual (hand) skills and organisation skills

You may choose to specialise in a particular area of practice such as sports injuries, diabetes, forensic podiatry or working with children. Other options include teaching or research. You could also move into management, either within podiatry services or general management. As head of a local podiatry service you would be responsible both for a team of staff and for managing a budget. Some podiatrists do further training to become podiatric surgeons. Others may decide to set up their own clinics, on their own or with other professionals.

Training usually starts with a five year first degree in medicine. Then there's two years foundation doctor training, two years core training (CT1-CT2), followed by four years specialists training (ST3-ST6). This period of training will include your royal college exams. Length of training can vary according to your circumstances.

Doctors may work up to 48 hours a week. The working hours may sometimes extend beyond the normal working day to include early mornings, evenings and weekends. You’ll first earn a salary when you start your foundation training after medical school. The basic salary ranges from £29,384 to £34,012. Once you start your specialty training as a clinical geneticist employed by the NHS, you can expect to earn a salary of at least £40,257, which can increase to between £84,559 and £114,003 as a consultant.

You'll need excellent communication skills to manage a wide range of relationships with colleagues, and patients and their families. You'll be emotionally resilient, have excellent problem-solving and diagnostic skills and work well in teams and under pressure. You'll also be very organised for the benefit of patients.

There are currently 147 clinical geneticists working in the NHS in England. In 2020, there were 40 applications for 13 specialty training places. You could progress to specialise in cancer genetics, cardiac genetics or dysmorphology.