Band 8b principal clinical psychologist in pain management

Band 8b Principal Clinical Psychologist in Pain Management

The closing date is 24 June 2026

Join us to apply your psychological expertise in a unique military setting. As a civilian clinician supporting serving members of the Armed Forces, you can retain your NHS Pension, Agenda for Change pay, and leave benefits.

Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) is part of Cyber and Specialist Operations Command. Within DMRC rehabilitation teams include Complex Trauma, Neurological Services, Force Generation (Spines and Upper Quadrant), Specialist Rehabilitation (rehab), Lower Limbs. The pain service is a key element of that service provision and patients rehabilitation. Patients seen at DMRC have a variety of conditions and are rehabilitated by a consultant‑led interdisciplinary team (IDT). Your role will be to lead, develop and provide a pain psychology service to facilitate rehabilitation.

This is a full‑time position, offering Monday to Thursday 08:00‑17:00 and Friday 08:00‑13:30.

As a Principal Clinical Psychologist in Pain Management, you will be recognised and supported through excellent rewards and employee benefits, including:

• Free parking
• Onsite gym and swimming pool with only a small cost
• Onsite shop
• An inclusive working environment
• Learning and development opportunities

Please be advised that the Department is conducting a review of all pay‑related allowances which could impact those allowances that the post currently being advertised attracts.

Main duties of the job

Based at DMRC Stanford Hall, you will provide, develop, and ensure the systematic provision of a highly specialist clinical psychology service to clients of the pain service, across all sectors of care, including the provision of specialist assessment, treatment, planning, implementation and monitoring outcomes. To offer clinical advice and consultation on clients psychological care to non‑psychologist colleagues and to other non‑professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the teams policies and procedures.

In this key clinical role, you will collaborate with multidisciplinary teams of military and civilian mental health professionals. You will take a leading role in developing the Pain Psychology Service and contribute to its ongoing service development within Pain Services. We support you in pursuing your clinical interests and encourage involvement in supervision, audit, research, service development, and training activities.

About us

Our success depends on our people – the Whole Force regular and reservist military, civil servants and contractors, all working as one, working together seamlessly to deliver for us.

Our civil servants are a central part of this Whole Force, developing strategy, making policy, supporting ministerial decision‑making and Parliamentary processes. In fact, with over 2,000 different roles working across 650 sites around the world, this is an excellent time to join one of the largest, most exciting departments in government.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to attracting and retaining people from across the full range of backgrounds and enabling flexible ways of working as the norm. We offer maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks of statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, and paternity leave of 2 weeks full pay.

In return, you can expect a department that helps you learn and develop that recognises your expertise and contribution, both as an individual and part of a team.

If you've ever wanted to do more, see more, go further or be better, we have roles in more professions and vocations than ever before. Let's see where your future will take you, together.

Job responsibilities

Duties will include, but not limited to:

• Providing a specialist pain psychology service for all clients of the service and utilising a range of therapy modalities, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Compassion Focused therapy (CFT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).
• Participating in local pain management groups and being responsible for service development for aspects of psychological care.
• Being responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals (carers, families and groups where appropriate), within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining several provisional hypotheses.
• Providing specialist clinical supervision to staff delivering formal psychological therapies.

Please read the attached job description and person specification prior to applying to fully understand all the duties required.

Selection Process

At application stage you will be assessed against your experience:

• Candidates will be required to provide CV details to include job history and previous skills and experience.
• Please provide information of how you meet the criteria set out in the Job Description. You may wish to further include examples of how you have tackled similar tasks or demonstrated the skills outlined in the job advert.
• Please ensure you demonstrate that you have the required skills, knowledge, experience, qualifications and memberships in the CV section of the application form.

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by AI, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

At interview you will be assessed against the following:

Technical Skills:

• NHS Core NHSC1 Communication
• NHS Core NHSC5 Quality
• NHS General NHS G6 People Management
• NHS Core NHSC4 Service Improvement

Further Information:

NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework - https://www.msg.scot.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/KSF-Handbook.pdf

The sift will be completed within 10 working days of the vacancy closing date. Interviews will be held on a date to be confirmed.

There will be no reimbursement for any travel expenses for the interview.

All employees joining Ministry of Defence who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a 6‑month probation period (unless otherwise advised) effective from the employment start date.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.

Access to the NHS pension scheme is available to the successful candidate.

To be considered for this role, qualifications and memberships detailed must be held in full, prior to submitting your application.

There is no requirement to deploy as this is met by our uniformed personnel, but you will form the continuity of care required by our patients when based at home.

The post does NOT offer relocation expenses (move of home, excess fares or temporary transfer). Non‑Standard move applicants will be eligible for the full package, subject to eligibility.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points‑based system, where a role has been deemed to be business‑critical. This role does not meet that category, and we will not sponsor a visa. It is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points‑based system.

Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

This vacancy is part of the A Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact dbscivpers-sgdmsresourcing@mod.gov.uk.

The Ministry of Defence requires all candidates who are successful at interview to declare any outside interests. These declarations will be discussed with successful candidates following the interview process and before a formal offer of employment is made, as some outside interests may not be compatible with MOD civilian roles. This will not, in the majority of cases, prevent employment in MOD, but it is a measure that must be taken to ensure that appropriate mitigations can be put in place to manage any potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest from the first day of employment.

The Ministry of Defence adopts a zero tolerance approach to unacceptable behaviours, which includes bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination and victimisation. You will not be eligible and will not be considered for this post if you have been dismissed from a role for such unacceptable behaviours within the last five years. This will also apply if you resign or otherwise leave a role but, because of an adverse decision, would have been dismissed for gross misconduct had you continued in that employment. Pre‑employment checks will be carried out.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for its staff which includes educating them on the benefits of not smoking, protecting them from the harmful effects of second‑hand smoke and supporting those who want to give up smoking. Under the Smoke‑Free Working Environment policy, Smoking and the use of all tobacco products (including combustible and chewing tobacco products) will not be permitted anywhere in the Defence working environment. The policy is Whole Force and includes all Defence personnel, contractors, visitors and other non‑MOD personnel. All applicants seeking, considering, or accepting employment with the Ministry of Defence should be aware of this policy and that it is already in place at a number of Defence Establishments.

Person Specification

Experience

• Post‑doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice. Experience working as a qualified clinical psychologist (Band 8a) and able to evidence appropriate knowledge and experience in practice to enable the post holder to clinically supervise trainee clinical psychologists.
• Experience of exercising responsibility for clients psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and within the context of a multi‑disciplinary care plan.
• Relevant prior experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist in adult mental health or an associated client group where the experience gained is relevant and transferable.
• Experience of clinical research (either implementation or supervision).
• Please provide your membership registration number.
• You are required to be registered with the relevant professional body, as detailed in the advert, prior to submitting your application.
• Your application will not progress should you fail to provide a valid membership registration number.

Provide a CV

• Please copy and paste your full CV as your response to this question; you will not be able to upload your CV as an attachment.
• Please refer to the essential criteria where applicable as your application may be rejected should insufficient information to shortlist be included.
• Please use double spacing where possible.

Behavior Statement

• Have you been dismissed for gross misconduct relating to bullying, harassment, discrimination or victimisation from any role in the past five years, or resigned or otherwise left a role but would have been dismissed for such gross misconduct because of an adverse decision, had you continued in that employment?
• Please respond with Yes or No as appropriate.

Registrations and Memberships

• Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) Registered as a Practitioner Psychologist
• Other related academic qualifications to masters or Doctorate level

Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or equivalent for those who trained prior to 1996), including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the BPS.
• Other related academic qualifications to masters or Doctorate level.
• Post‑doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by HCPC.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

£64,455 to £74,896 a year Pro‑rata. Pay award pending