Pre-reg Optometrist

Clinical jobs at Specsavers

Pre-reg optometrist jobs

Shape your future

Off to the best possible start

The pre-reg year can be a challenging time. Being assessed and examined while working full-time and getting used to the technology and the processes in store. But, it can also be incredibly rewarding. Making a difference to people’s lives by helping them to see better. Detecting an eye condition and saving sight or even a life as a result.

Our pre-reg programme is all about getting your optometry career off to the best possible start. Forward-thinking, dynamic and engaging, it supports your learning and helps you to be the best you can be. Choose Specsavers for your career in optometry and become part of our journey as the leading provider of eyecare.

Developed by experts

Our pre-reg programme has been developed by experts in optometry education, and shaped by the experience of thousands of graduates.

First-hand experience

Learn first-hand from experienced assessors, examiners and leading optometrists.

Size matters

Join a community of hundreds of pre-reg optometrists, many of whom will become life-long friends.

What is great about Specsavers is the sheer volume of patients; it’s easy to get stuck in and start practising. I was testing from the very beginning and always had the support of my supervisors, the dispensing opticians, the contact lens opticians and of course our retail staff.

Katie Gerachty

I’m really enjoying my pre-reg with Specsavers. So far I have been on a residential course in Birmingham where I learnt about all of the competencies I would be assessed on throughout the year, as well as a course on contact lenses and pathology, and mock OSCEs.

Emily Charlesworth

Pre-reg optometrist

Unique experience

Being a pre-reg optometrist at Specsavers is an experience you’ll get nowhere else. You will have support right where you need it most – in store. You will have every opportunity to use your skills to achieve your assessed competencies and no problem achieving your minimum portfolio requirements for patient numbers.

It’s your supervisor’s job to guide you through the pre-reg year – and you will be in the best hands in the business. Not only are they recognised by the College of Optometrists, but they have also benefited from professional training to make sure they can give you all the help you need. Your supervisor is just part of a wider store team of amazing people who are there to help you – to make sure that you are the best pre-reg you can be. They provide the structure for you to get all the relevant experience you need in primary care, dispensing and contact lens cases.

Every Specsavers store is locally owned and led by its directors, usually an optometrist and a dispensing optician or retailer. Which means you get to know the directors personally – the optometrist director may even be your supervisor.

Future-proof training tailored to you

Your pre-reg year begins with your induction in store to set you up to be an effective member of the team. While your supervisor and store team are your main resource for experiential learning, you will go on to benefit from seven additional days of residential courses across the year, delivered by expert tutors, clinicians, assessors and examiners.

We are all about supporting your studies, with courses designed to get you ready for your assessment visits while enabling you to better help your patients every day. Whether its online or face-to-face, you’ll find our learning is flexible too, with a mix of lectures, clinical discussions and interactive sessions.

Covering all the relevant competencies to get you through the College of Optometrists Scheme for registration, we also ensure that you have additional training in optical coherence tomography (OCT) and relevant accreditations to deliver enhanced optical services.

Unique to Specsavers, there is the internal professional network on Yammer where you can post cases and learn from the experience and opinions of thousands of optometrists across the UK and Ireland. Easily accessible on your phone or tablet, there’s even a group that is just for pre-reg and newly-qualified optometrists.

And finally, there is the brand-new Optometry Essentials study guide for student and pre-reg optometrists. Focused on the College of Optometrists’ Scheme for Registration, it is the product of decades-worth of study notes and insight from students, supervisors, assessors, examiners, practising optometrists and educators. With handy hints and reflective activities to suit a variety of learning styles, this will provide you with the foundations you need to be successful in your assessments and career as a frontline eyecare practitioner.

The learning never ends

Once you qualify our bespoke course, Excel, celebrates your OSCE success and smooths the transition towards becoming a confident registered professional. Delivered by leading optometrists, this six-point CET course supports you to map out your professional ambitions from the very start of your career.

Then there is ‘Ascend Higher’, a three-point CET-accredited workshop devoted entirely to you and your continual development after qualification.

Throughout your career, you can benefit from lectures, peer discussions and workshops at the professional advancement conference (PAC), the largest one-day optical conference in Europe, or learn more locally via peer discussions in store or at one of our regional conferences, the MiniPACs.

You can also engage with Profile, our online professional journal. It is an incredible resource – packed with news, CET articles, case studies – and a great way to help you develop your own career.

Use all these resources as stepping stones to higher qualifications, postgraduate study and professional leadership roles.

Choose now – and choose later

So many career choices are open to you as an optometrist at Specsavers.

Specialise in enhanced optical services. Become a WOPEC Assessor. Facilitate learning and development in store as an ophthalmic lead professional. Give back to the next generation of optometrists as a pre-reg supervisor. Volunteer for a charity. Work in a Newmedica specialist eye clinic. Or, begin the pathway to own your store as a joint venture partner – an opportunity unique to Specsavers. Do any or all of the above. The choice is yours.