Health trainer

Working life

Health trainers help their clients to assess their lifestyles and wellbeing, set goals for improving their health, agree action-plans, and provide practical support and information that will help people to change their behaviour. This could include promoting the benefits of:

• taking regular exercise and eating healthily
• reducing alcohol intake
• breastfeeding
• practising safe sex
• stopping smoking

Who will you work with? 

As a health trainer, you’ll be knowledgeable about the health issues that affect the community you are working in. The clients that you work with may be identified from existing community and support groups, through referral (such as from a health professional at a children’s centre) or via self-referral. Your clients will often come from hard-to-reach, disadvantaged groups such as the homeless, travellers and those with drug, alcohol and addiction problems.

While much of your work might be on a one-to-one basis, sometimes you could be working with groups of people, for example delivering group sessions on behaviour change and health improvement.

Health trainers may also be assisted in their work by members of the community who have been trained to be health trainer champions (HTCs are usually volunteers who have undertaken health improvement training at level 2 with the Royal Society of Public Health [4], and who can help health trainer services to extend their reach within communities).  

Where will you work?

Health trainers often work for private companies that provide a health trainer service for the NHS or for a local authority. They may also work directly for the NHS, a local authority or a charity, in the prison service or the armed services.

Want to find out more?

• Find out more about the entry requirements for health trainers [5]
• Find out more about the skills and interests needed by health trainers [6]
• Find out more about training and development for health trainers [7]

• Pay and conditions

  Pay and conditions of employment are likely to vary depending on the employer.  For more information please view our pay and benefits page [8].

  Example salaries: 

  Health Trainer: £18,813-£20,795 (Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, 2020)

  Health Trainer: £24,275-£26,343 (City of York Council, 2020)

• Where the role can lead

  With experience, health trainers may wish to progress into practitioner roles [9], into management or service development positions or other roles with a focus on public health [10].   

• Job market and vacancies

  Job market information

  According to an estimate by Health Trainers England, there are over 4,000 health trainers who have been trained or in training.

  Where to look for job vacancies

  • NHS Jobs [11]
  • NHS Scotland Recruitment [12]   
  • Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland [13]
  • Public Sector Jobs in Wales [14] 
  • Local Government Jobs (UK) [15]
  • Scottish Local Government Jobs [16]
  • Local Government Jobs in Northern Ireland [17]
  • Welsh Local Government Jobs [18]
  • Royal Society for Public Health [19]

  Recruiting for values

  If you're applying for a role either directly in the NHS or in an organisation that provides NHS services, you'll be asked to show how you think the values of the NHS Constitution apply in your everyday work. The same will be true if you are applying for a university course funded by the NHS.

  Find out more about NHS values [20].

  If you’re applying for a job in a local authority, each has its own set of core values underpinning its recruitment exercises, which can usually be found in the recruitment section of its website.

  Job titles

  Note that terms such as ‘practitioner’, ‘manager’, ‘specialist’ and ‘consultant’ may have different meanings in different job titles. Therefore, they do not necessarily reflect the role category that the job really belongs to. It is important to check the person specification of the role to fully understand the skills and knowledge required.

• Further information

  • City and Guilds [21]
  • Health Trainers’ Network [22]
  • Royal Society for Public Health [23]

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