Is counselling in demand and a good career to pursue
Counselling is a growing profession in Australia, with strong employment prospects, diverse specialisations, and the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in people's lives.
Mental health has moved firmly into national conversation. More Australians are seeking support and more employers are investing in wellbeing programs. More communities, particularly in regional and rural areas, are calling for qualified professionals to fill the gaps. As such, trained counsellors are in demand, and the profession is growing with it.
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If you're weighing up whether there's real demand for counsellors in Australia and whether it's a worthwhile career direction, this article gives you an evidence-based look at the job outlook, the sectors where counsellors are most needed, and the skills that Counselling courses and degrees are designed to build.
Counselling job outlook in Australia
The data on counsellor employment in Australia is encouraging. According to Jobs and Skills Australia, there are currently around 40,000 people employed in jobs as counsellors in the country, with annual employment growth of approximately 3,400 roles per year. Projections from the Australian Counselling Association indicate the counselling workforce is expected to grow by 15.1% between 2023 and 2028, adding roughly 4,500 new positions to bring the total workforce to around 34,600 counsellors.
To understand why this growth is happening, it helps to look at the demand. The 2020–2022 National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), found that 22% of Australians aged 16–85 experienced a mental illness in the previous 12 months. Over their lifetime, that figure rises to 43% of the population. Separately, research published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry found that demand for mental health care among Australian adults rose from 14% in 2007 to 20% in 2021, a 43% increase over 14 years. The demand isn't only coming from a bigger population, but because people are increasingly willing to seek professional support when they need it.
Metropolitan vs regional and rural areas
Counsellor employment is spread across Australia, but the need is particularly high outside major cities. Research from the Black Dog Institute highlights that long waiting times and a shortage of mental health professionals disproportionately affect people in rural and remote regions.
The ACA's 2024 Counsellor Workforce Census found that only 9% of counsellors work in rural or remote areas, despite around 29% of Australians living outside major cities. Among rural counsellors who had no capacity for new clients, more than half cited existing high demand as the reason.
The gap in access to mental health support between metropolitan and regional populations has been a persistent policy concern. A joint communiqué from the NSW and Australian Governments, published in September 2025 following the Bilateral Regional Health Forum, acknowledged that mental ill-health and suicide disproportionately impact people living in rural, regional and remote areas, and committed to expanding services across these communities. This has direct implications for counselling workforce demand.
Sectors where counsellors are increasingly needed
Counsellors work across a wide range of industries and settings. According to Jobs and Skills Australia, the largest employment base sits within Health Care and Social Assistance, Education and Training, and Public Administration and Safety.
Within community services, demand is rising as organisations deliver more wraparound support to people experiencing housing instability, family conflict, addiction and trauma. In schools, counsellors and school psychologists play a more complex role. They may be involved in early intervention programs, crisis response, individual counselling, and supporting teachers to understand and respond to student wellbeing needs.
Telehealth has also broadened the reach of counselling services. Particularly for people in regional communities or those with limited mobility, remote counselling has become a mainstream delivery method rather than a workaround. This has created more flexible employment pathways for counsellors and made the profession more geographically accessible for clients.
Factors driving employment growth
Several converging factors are driving sustained demand for counsellors:
- Population growth: As Australia's population grows, so does the absolute number of people who will experience mental health challenges at some point in their lives. More people means more demand for services, regardless of the per-capita rate of mental illness.
- Youth mental health: Young Australians aged 16–24 are among the most affected by mental health conditions. The ABS reports that 38.8% of people aged 16–24 had a 12-month mental disorder, a markedly higher rate than older age groups. Schools, universities, and youth-focused community organisations are responding by strengthening their counselling capacity.
- Workplace wellbeing investment: Poor mental health in Australian workplaces drives significant costs through absenteeism, presenteeism, and compensation claims, creating a strong business case for employers to invest in mental health support such as through Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs).
- Telehealth expansion: Digital platforms have helped counsellors to connect with clients who otherwise would not have been able to access it. It's created new roles for practitioners who can support clients remotely, particularly benefiting regional and remote populations.
Counselling skills employers are seeking
The employment data makes a strong case for counselling as a career. The more useful question for anyone seriously considering it is what employers expect from the counsellors they bring on.
Core skills and knowledge
Employers and professional bodies consistently highlight four areas of competency as foundational for professional counsellors in Australia:
- Evidence-informed practice: CBT, interpersonal therapy, and person-centred approaches are core frameworks taught in ACA and PACFA-accredited counselling programmes in Australia. Counsellors are expected to draw on these in practice and apply them in response to what each patient needs.
- Cultural responsiveness: Australia is a culturally diverse country. Counsellors need to work effectively with people from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. This includes particular attention to the needs of First Nations communities, where the impacts of historical trauma, structural inequality and service access barriers require culturally safe and informed practice.
- Ethical decision-making: Professional counselling in Australia is guided by codes of ethics maintained by peak bodies, including the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) and the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA). Counsellors navigate complex situations involving confidentiality, mandatory reporting, dual relationships, and professional boundaries. Sound ethical judgement is not optional; it's a core professional requirement.
- Client-centred communication: Many clients won't open up unless they feel safe to do so. The ability to build rapport, listen without agenda, and communicate in ways that make people feel genuinely understood create the conditions for therapeutic work to happen.
In-demand specialisations
Certain specialisations are seeing particularly strong demand in the current employment market. These include youth and school counselling, addiction support (including alcohol and drug counselling) and family and relationship counselling. For counsellors considering where to focus their professional development, these areas are in clear need and offer a strong foundation for building a sustainable caseload.
Multidisciplinary team work
It's now a reasonable expectation that counselling practitioners will work within multidisciplinary teams rather than in isolation. In hospital settings, community health centres, schools and aged care facilities, counsellors increasingly collaborate with general practitioners, social workers, psychologists, occupational therapists, and nurses to provide coordinated, holistic support to clients. To do this well, counsellors need to be strong professional communicators, have clarity about their scope of practice and have the ability to navigate different institutional cultures. Focusing on these skills will make you valuable in today's job market.
For those drawn to work that is both intellectually rigorous and personally meaningful, counselling offers a career with real longevity and genuine impact. For anyone considering how to become a counsellor, our guide to starting a new career in counselling covers the qualifications and pathways involved.
