Before you begin: professional governance checklist
Portfolio working does not change your core professional obligations, but it does require you to actively manage them across multiple contexts. As you take on each new role, consider the following:
HCPC registration and scope of practice: you must practise within your competence in every role you hold. Your scope of practice may differ between positions; what is within scope in one setting may not be in another. If you are expanding into a new clinical area, ensure your skills and knowledge are sufficient before taking on that work.
Professional indemnity insurance: RCOT membership insurance covers sole traders across their practice activities, but does not extend to limited company structures. If you are working across multiple roles or organisations, check that your cover reflects your full scope, including any specialist or non-clinical work. Contact your insurer whenever your practice changes.
Conflicts of interest: working across organisations can occasionally create situations where your duties to one employer or client could conflict with those of another. Identify these early, declare them where required, and keep a record of how you have managed them.
Contracts and expectations: clarify in writing the scope of work, payment terms and data protection responsibilities before beginning any associate or contractor arrangement. Do not rely on verbal agreements.
Supervision and CPD: when you are not part of a single organisation, supervision does not always happen automatically. You are responsible for ensuring that reflective supervision and continuing professional development remain in place, regardless of your working structure. RCOT’ s CPDme tool is available to members to support this.
For further guidance, RCOT’ s Professional Advisory Service is available to members at hello @ rcot. co. uk.
the time and energy available for developing new strands of practice is genuinely constrained.
Thomas Edwards says:‘ I’ ve got to put a lot of effort into promoting what I’ m doing and yet essentially I have one day every two weeks off to do that.’
Success in a portfolio career involves moving beyond a purely clinical mindset and taking ownership of the sustainability of your entire professional life. That is not a weakness in your clinical identity; it is an extension of it.
A final word
A portfolio career is not a single destination or a fixed structure. It is an ongoing, iterative process shaped by your values, your circumstances, and the needs of the people you serve.
The practitioners featured here did not arrive at their current positions in one step. They made incremental moves, tested new ground and kept returning to the question that underpins it all: What kind of occupational therapist do I want to be and what kind of working life will allow me to sustain that?
The answer will look different for everyone. But if you are sitting with that question now your thinking is already aligned with a portfolio career. The next step does not have to be a leap. Sometimes it is simply making a little space and seeing what flows into it.
Reference Tempest S( 2026) Growth‐based career planning for healthcare professionals: a narrative for change( 1st edn) Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Written by SHAEN MILWARD, Founder of
OTsupervision. com from interviews with Pasna Sallis, Founding Director of Weekday Wow Factor and Innovation Lead for the RCOT Communities Healthy Ageing Practice Network, Thomas Edwards, Director of TE Tracks Ltd and Community Engagement Lead for the RCOT Communities Acute and Emergency Care Network, Jo Bresi-Ando, Director of Stepping Stones Therapy Services Ltd and Michelle Armstrong, Playful Progress OT
10 Occupational Therapy in Independent Practice