Occupation
Occupational therapist
Occupational therapists help people do the everyday activities that illness, injury, disability, or ageing has made difficult. The intervention is often environmental or adaptive rather than medical: change the task, change the tool, change the home. Assessments frequently happen where the person actually lives or works rather than in a clinic.
Also known as: OT · Occupational therapy practitioner
Occupation content
Part of Healthcare and clinical services
What the work involves
- Assess how a person manages self-care, work, school, and leisure tasks.
- Visit homes or workplaces to identify barriers and recommend adaptations.
- Prescribe and fit assistive equipment, seating, or splints and teach their use.
- Design graded activity programmes that rebuild function or compensate for lost capacity.
- Work with families, employers, and schools to make an adaptation actually stick.
- Write functional assessment reports for funders, employers, or the clinical team.
How people commonly enter
- An entry-to-practice occupational therapy degree recognised by the regulator.
- A graduate-entry occupational therapy programme taken after a first degree.
- A credential-assessment and examination route for therapists trained in another jurisdiction.
Typical training: Postgraduate or professional degree
Licensing: Regulated in most jurisdictions — confirm the current requirement with the regulator in your province, state, or country.
Typical work context
Public facing · Team based · Varied work · Client sites · Involves travel
Related interests
Social (helping) · Investigative (analytical) · Realistic (hands-on)
Related aptitude preparation
These are preparation links only. They do not measure eligibility for this occupation and no score here qualifies or disqualifies anyone.
Skills to practise
Practice suites
Related learning
Family-level learning links for Healthcare and clinical services.
Official sources
Labour-market facts such as pay and employment projections are not reproduced here. Open an official source below for figures, with its own geography and reference period.
- O*NET OnLine — Occupational Therapists (29-1122.00) · United States
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- UK National Careers Service — Occupational therapist · United Kingdom
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- Canada Job Bank — Explore an occupation (search: occupational therapist) · Canada
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Labour-market context (not part of exploration match)
This is broad family-level context for Healthcare and clinical services in Canada, not a figure for Occupational therapist. It does not affect matching scores and is not an eligibility determination.
This is a broad Healthcare and clinical services family. Explore the official profile for the chosen occupation; entry education and training can differ within the family.
Canada Job Bank Career Planning · Canada · Current official profile; consult source for its release period
Healthcare and clinical services: education pathways
Some roles in Healthcare and clinical services may be regulated. Confirm whether the specific role requires registration, certification, or a jurisdiction-specific licence.
Canada Job Bank Career Planning · Canada · Current official profile; consult source for its release period
Healthcare and clinical services: licensing
Find jobs
These are live, user-controlled searches on each source's own site for “ Occupational therapist”. Novus Learn does not fetch, store, or rank these results, and job availability never changes your exploration match score.
- Search Canada Job Bank · Canada
- Search USAJOBS · United States federal
- Search EURES · European Union / EEA
- Search Indeed · International (choose location on Indeed)