The same Graduate Basis for Chartership, at wildly different prices: what UK psychology conversion courses actually charge, read from providers' own fee pages

Every course on this page is on the British Psychological Society’s own accredited-courses register, and every one of them ends in the same thing: eligibility for Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership. The BPS register says so in identical words on each record — “this degree confers eligibility for the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership.”

The published prices for entry in 2026/27 run from £7,080 for a whole programme to £39,200 for one year.

The single sharpest comparison is inside one university. The University of Glasgow runs three BPS-accredited conversion MScs. For its two campus programmes it charges an International & EU applicant £33,210. For its online programme it charges everyone, UK or international, £15,000 in total. Same university, same accreditor, same GBC at the end.

Nobody publishes this comparison, so here it is, with the URL and the intake year attached to every figure.

The fees, as each provider states them for 2026/27

Provider and course	Delivery	Duration as stated	UK / Home fee	International fee	Accredited from (BPS register)
UCL — Psychological Sciences MSc	Campus (London)	Full-time; part-time over two years	£16,800 full-time, £8,400 part-time	£39,200 full-time, £19,600 part-time	2016/2017
Glasgow — Psychological Science (conversion) MSc	Campus (Gilmorehill)	12 months full-time	£12,960	£33,210	2015/2016
Glasgow — Psychological Studies (conversion) MSc	Campus (Gilmorehill)	12 months full-time	£11,943	£33,210	2004/2005
Birkbeck — Psychology (Conversion) MSc	Campus (London)	One year full-time or two years part-time	£13,110 full-time, £6,555 part-time	£22,230 full-time, £11,115 part-time	2009/2010
Glasgow — Psychology (conversion) MSc	Online distance learning	Part-time only, “cannot be completed in less than 3 academic sessions”	£15,000 total	£15,000 total (same figure)	2018/2019
Derby — PgDip/MSc Psychology (online)	Online	Starts September, January or May	£9,720 total	£9,720 total (same figure)	2011/2012
Walbrook Institute London — MSc Psychology	100% online	Full-time 1 year or 13 months; part-time 2 years; monthly starts	£7,080 total	£7,080 total (same figure)	2025/26

Every number in that table was read on 3 September 2026 from the provider’s own fee page, linked in the sources above. Where a provider states a fee “per year” we have said full-time or part-time rather than computing a total, because part-time courses run over more than one year and providers reserve the right to raise fees between years.

The pattern is not “cheap universities and expensive universities”

Look at the last three columns again. The four campus courses each publish two prices: a home price and a much larger international price. The three online courses each publish one price that applies to everyone. Glasgow states it as “UK / EU / International: £15,000 (total cost)”. Derby lists its fee table with a single row headed “UK/EU/International”, £1,080 per 20 credits, £9,720 for the seven modules that make up the award. Walbrook publishes a dedicated international fees page and lists its online MSc Psychology at the same £7,080 shown to UK applicants.

So the fivefold spread is not mainly a spread between institutions. It is the gap between an international student’s price for a UK campus place and anyone’s price for a UK online place.

That is the whole finding, and it has an obvious implication and a non-obvious catch.

The obvious implication

If you are outside the UK, hold a non-psychology degree, and want GBC in order to apply for accredited postgraduate training later, the cheapest published route to that identical qualification is an online conversion course, and the difference is not marginal. UCL’s overseas full-time fee for 2026/27 is £39,200. Walbrook’s total programme cost is £7,080. Both end in GBC.

Some further detail on the ends of that range, since the arithmetic is what people actually want:

UCL publishes tuition of £16,800 (UK) and £39,200 (Overseas) for full-time 2026/27, halved for part-time over two years, plus “an application processing fee for this course of £90 for online applications” and, for offer holders with Overseas fee status, “a fee deposit will be charged at 10% of the first year fee”. It also notes a cohort guarantee: “their tuition fees will not increase during the course of the programme”. As at the date we read the page, both of UCL’s 2026/27 application windows showed Applications closed.

Walbrook publishes £7,080 in total, made up of “10x 15-credit modules” at £590 each plus “Your final 30-credit Research Project module will be charged at £1,180”. It offers a “15% reduction on your total tuition fees” for paying in full up front, and pay-per-module instalments otherwise. Its BPS register record shows the accreditation cohort as 2025/26 — the newest on this page by a decade — with delivery structure “Conversion / Distance/Blended Learning / Online”.

Glasgow’s online course is the one that makes the comparison unarguable, because the campus and online prices come from the same institution. Its online page also states plainly what the trade is: “this programme is only delivered part-time and cannot be completed in less than 3 academic sessions. Our only full-time conversion programmes are located on campus here in Glasgow.” Three years part-time for £15,000, or twelve months on campus for £33,210.

The non-obvious catch, which is the reason this page has a companion

A conversion course that you cannot get a visa for is not a cheaper route to the UK. It is a different product.

Providers say this themselves, in their own words. Birkbeck’s course page states: “International students who require a Student visa should apply to study on our courses full-time as these qualify for Student visa sponsorship”, and adds “As a Student visa student, you should also apply to study on campus only, as online and flexible options of study (if they are available for your course) may affect the conditions of your visa.” Kent, whose conversion MSc is delivered by distance learning, states: “Due to visa restrictions, students who require a student visa to study cannot study part-time unless undertaking a distance or blended learning programme with no on-campus provision.”

If your goal is the qualification, the online price is the real price. If your goal is to be in the UK, the campus price is the real price, and the cheap column is not available to you on the terms you were imagining. We have set out exactly what each provider says, and what gov.uk publishes about which courses the Student route covers, in online psychology conversion courses and the UK Student route. Read that before you act on this table.

Four other things that move the number

The credit size of the award. BPS states that a conversion course “will usually consist of at least one full year (approximately 45 weeks full-time, or its part-time equivalent) and typically comprise either 120 or 180 credits”, and that for a 180-credit award, holding a non-accredited degree “is the only entry requirement set by the Society”. For a 120-credit award, “applicants will need to have previously studied the equivalent of at least 60 credits of psychology at the undergraduate level”. A 120-credit course is cheaper because it is smaller — and it is only open to you if you already have the prior psychology credits. Derby says the same thing in its own words: its MSc route “will enable you to achieve 180 credits of Psychology”, while “If you already have 60 credits of Psychology (level 4 or above), you could gain direct entry to the online Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology conversion course”.

Deposits. Glasgow: “International and EU applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2,000 when an offer is made.” UCL: 10% of the first year fee for Overseas fee status, 2.5% for UK.

Cost of being in the city. UCL’s page states the cost of a monthly zones 1–2 travelcard as £119.90 and links its cost-of-living guide. That is not tuition, and it exists only on the campus routes.

Whether the accreditation covered your cohort. Every BPS register record carries a Date Accredited field, and the register’s own note says “Programmes are accredited from the cohort detailed in the ‘Date Accredited’ field.” Walbrook’s is 2025/26; Glasgow’s Psychological Studies is 2004/05. Both are currently accredited. If you are reading this page in a later year, re-check the record rather than trusting this table.

What we could not read, and therefore did not publish

University of Kent’s fees. Kent runs a BPS-accredited online distance-learning Psychology Conversion MSc — the register shows it accredited for all intakes from 2023/2024 — and its course page has a fee panel headed “The 2026/27 annual tuition fees for this course are:” with four labelled rows. On the day we read it, the figures in those rows did not render to us. We have therefore left Kent out of the fee table entirely rather than take a number from a league table, an agent site or an older cached page.

Manchester Metropolitan, Cardiff and Nottingham Trent. All run accredited conversion courses. Their sites refused our requests, so we publish no fee for them.

Everyone else. The BPS register’s currently-accredited conversion list runs to well over forty programmes; we read a first page of forty-one alphabetically from Aberdeen to East London, which alone includes online or distance-learning conversion routes at Anglia Ruskin, Arden, Aston, Bradford, Coventry and Derby. This page is not a complete price list and does not claim to be. It is seven fees we read ourselves, on one day, with the URL attached.

Any claim about which course is better. BPS refuses to make it and so do we: “The British Psychological Society is unable to recommend one accredited programme over another, or likewise comment on the differences or strengths of the courses by way of comparison.”

What to do

1. Decide first whether you need a UK visa. That single fact determines which column of the table is real for you. Start with online conversion courses and the Student route.
2. Check the credit size before you compare prices. A 120-credit course is cheaper and needs 60 credits of prior psychology; a 180-credit course needs only a non-accredited degree.
3. Look every shortlisted course up on the BPS register and read its Date Accredited field, for your intake year, not for today.
4. Add the deposit and the application fee to the campus options, and the cost of living to any course you would move for.
5. If you are not sure you need a conversion course at all, check whether your existing degree already meets the standard — see how BPS assesses an overseas psychology degree and what GBC is and is not.

We are not an agent, we take no fee from any provider named here, and we do not recommend courses. These are seven published prices, read on one day, with the intake year and the accreditation cohort attached to each. Providers change fees; check the page yourself before you commit.