Does the HCPC accept your English test?

Your profession

This decides everything below — which tests the HCPC will accept from you, and what score you need.

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What the HCPC actually asks for

These are the published minimums for internationally trained applicants, quoted from the HCPC's own certificate page. They are not the same as the NMC's rules for nurses, and the differences are the expensive part.

IELTS — 7.0 overall with no element below 6.5. Speech and language therapists need 8.0 with no element below 7.5.

OET — a total of 1400 across the four sub-tests with no element below 300; speech and language therapists need 1800 with nothing below 400. Note the shape of that rule: the HCPC adds your four scores together, where the NMC instead sets a separate minimum for each sub-test. The same certificate can satisfy one regulator and fail the other.

OET is accepted for six professions only — chiropodists and podiatrists, dietitians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiographers, and speech and language therapists. If your profession is not on that list, an OET certificate will not be read at all, whatever your scores are. Sitting the wrong test costs roughly ₹32,000 and several weeks, so check this before you book anything.

TOEFL iBT — accepted too, which surprises people who have read NMC guidance, because the NMC does not take TOEFL at all. TOEFL changed its scoring, and the HCPC publishes two sets of minimums either side of 21 January 2026: 100 out of 120 before that date, and Reading 4.5, Listening 5, Writing 4.5, Speaking 5 with an overall of 5 on or after it. Speech and language therapists need 118 out of 120, or Reading 5.5, Listening 5.5, Writing 6, Speaking 6 and an overall of 6.

How long a certificate lasts — it must be no more than two years old when the HCPC receives your application. The NMC counts instead to the date it assesses a complete application, which lands later and is outside your control, so if you are applying to both regulators you cannot use one deadline for the other.

Every figure above is quoted from the HCPC's certificate of English language proficiency page, read on 7 September 2026. We have not sourced the HCPC's full profession list, any rule about combining scores across two sittings, or which countries are exempt from the requirement — so this page says nothing about those rather than guessing.