Pharmacy technician education and training | General Pharmaceutical Council (2024)

Once qualified as a pharmacy technician you could be involved in:

• providing safe and effective pharmacy services
• supplying medicines and devices to patients, whether on prescription or over the counter
• working with patients to reach the best care for them
• assembling medicines for prescriptions
• providing information to patients and other healthcare professionals
• managing areas of medicines supply, such as dispensaries
• supervising other pharmacy staff and being involved in their training and development
• answering customers questions face to face or by phone
• referring problems or queries to the pharmacist
• manufacturing
• aseptic dispensing, which involves maintaining the facilities used to prepare sterile medicines
• involvement in quality control, procurement, information technology and clinical trials

They work in a wide range of different places including:

• pharmacies
• GP practices
• hospitals
• care homes
• community services
• prisons
• armed forces
• pharmaceutical industry

To qualify as a pharmacy technician, you’ll need to complete a GPhC-approved integrated competency and knowledge-based qualification or course.

As it’s a vocation course it’s flexible and can be delivered face-to-face, at a distance, online or a combination of these. The training consists of two years consecutive work-based experience under the direction of a pharmacist or another pharmacy technician. You must be directly accountable to them for at least 14 hours per week.

Our approved qualifications and courses replace an earlier requirement to have a separate competency-based qualification and a knowledge-based qualification. Trainees enrolled onto these separate qualifications are still able to register with us within five calendar years from starting their courses.

The entry requirements will vary depending on the course provider. As a guide, you might be expected to have the equivalent of four GCSEs at Grade C and above, including mathematics, English language, science and one other subject.

You’ll also need to be working in a pharmacy under the supervision of a pharmacist or pharmacy technician.

You can become a pharmacy technician through an apprenticeship.

GPhC-approved courses and qualifications delivered through an apprenticeship funding route must fulfil all the relevant requirements of the apprenticeship standard. This will include the End Point Assessment (EPA).

It’s a requirement that apprentice pharmacy technician trainees must pass the EPA to be eligible to register with us. The funding route for pharmacy technical education in Wales and Scotland is devolved and is subject to local arrangements.