business · United Kingdom edition
It’s easy to be a Solicitor.
Becoming a solicitor in England and Wales now runs through the SQE: a degree in any subject, passes in SQE1 and SQE2, two years of qualifying work experience, and SRA character checks. Assessment and admission fees alone come to £5,226 from autumn 2026. Full-time solicitors and lawyers earned a median of £56,977 in 2025.
Last verified Version 1By Editorial Team
Key facts
United Kingdom- Time to qualify
5–8 years
About five years at the fastest from starting a degree: a three-year law degree, then two years of qualifying work experience with SQE1 and SQE2 taken along the way. Six is more typical for non-law graduates, who add a conversion or SQE preparation year. A solicitor apprenticeship runs about six years from school with no tuition debt. Eight covers part-time study, self-funded candidates fitting QWE around other work, and resits — SQE1 resits are common enough to plan for.
- Cost to qualify
£5,226 – £53,446
The floor is the regulator's own fees, if you already hold a degree and self-study: SQE1 £2,006 and SQE2 £3,086 from the new academic year in September 2026 (up from £1,934 and £2,974), plus the £100 admission fee and £34 for the Atlantic Data background screening the SRA requires — £5,226 in total. The SRA is explicit that preparation courses are optional and that self-study is a legitimate low-cost route. In practice most candidates buy a course: BPP's LLM SQE1&2 is £14,900 for 2026-27 outside London and £17,500 at London Central, and the University of Law's LLM Legal Practice (SQE1&2) is £15,150 outside London and £18,850 in London from 1 July 2026 — neither includes the SRA assessment fees. Add a three-year law degree at the 2026/27 £9,790 cap (£29,370, loan-funded and not paid upfront) and the full route from scratch reaches about £53,400. Appeals cost £350 and £850, refunded if successful, and resits are charged at the same rate as the original assessment.
All figures apply to United Kingdom. Salaries, licensing, and timelines differ by country — where other editions exist, switch between them at the top of the page.
Is it easy for you?
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How to become a Solicitor — step by step
- 1
Get a degree — any subject 3 years
A law degree covers much of SQE1 as you go; a non-law degree is not a disadvantage in recruitment and can be an advantage in specialisms such as intellectual property or tax. At the 2026/27 cap this is £9,790 a year, loan-funded rather than paid upfront.
- 2
Decide how you will prepare — and whether to pay for it 1–12 months
The SRA states plainly that courses are optional and self-study is legitimate. Weigh a £14,900–£18,850 LLM against £5,226 of unavoidable fees before you commit; if an employer will sponsor you, the calculation changes entirely.
- 3
Start accumulating qualifying work experience 2 years, often overlapping
Paralegal roles, law clinics, in-house placements and training contracts all count, across up to four organisations, and QWE can run before, during or after the assessments. Start it early: this is the part of the route with no fixed timetable and no guaranteed place.
- 4
Sit SQE1 One sitting, twice a year
Two 180-question functioning legal knowledge papers taken in the same window. Budget £2,006 and plan for the possibility of a resit — the January 2026 overall pass rate was 53%.
- 5
Sit SQE2 One sitting
Sixteen practical assessments across advocacy, interviewing, drafting, writing, research and case analysis, at £3,086. Pass rates are much higher here, but the skills are harder to cram and reward real QWE.
- 6
Apply for admission A few weeks
Complete the £34 Atlantic Data screening first, then apply through mySRA and pay the £100 admission fee. Choose your admission date, and apply for your first practising certificate.
- 7
Qualify into a practice area First 1–2 years
Corporate, litigation, property, private client, crime, family and in-house pay and behave very differently. The ONS median of £56,977 spans all of them, and the gap between a regional high-street firm and a City seat is wider than any figure on this page.
Requirements to be a Solicitor
- A degree in any subjecteducationRequired
The SRA accepts a degree in any subject, or an equivalent Level 6 qualification. Law is not required — non-law graduates simply have more SQE1 material to cover, which is what conversion and preparation courses exist for.
- Pass SQE1certificationRequired
Two functioning legal knowledge assessments, FLK1 and FLK2, at £1,003 each from September 2026 (£967 before). It is the harder gate: in the January 2026 sitting 7,918 candidates sat both parts and 53% passed overall, 58% among first-attempt candidates. Across the whole history of the assessment 19,281 candidates have passed, 66% of all attempts.
- Pass SQE2certificationRequired
Practical legal skills assessed orally and in writing, £3,086 from October 2026 bookings (£2,974 before). Pass rates are markedly higher than SQE1 — 85% of all attempts have passed, with first-time rates between 69% and 84%.
- Two years of qualifying work experienceexperienceRequired
Two years full-time or the equivalent, providing real legal services. It does not have to be a training contract: paralegal work, a law clinic or in-house experience can all count, across up to four organisations, and it can be done before, during or after the SQE. Simulated legal work does not count. In practice securing QWE, not passing the exams, is what most candidates find hardest.
- Character and suitability, and admission to the rolllicenseRequired
The SRA runs background checks before admission; screening is carried out by Atlantic Data and costs £34, and the admission fee itself is £100. An early character and suitability assessment is available at no charge if you have something in your history you want ruled on before you spend money on the route.
- Practising certificatelicenseRequired
Admission puts you on the roll; a separate annual practising certificate is what lets you practise. At the end of July 2026 there were 214,080 solicitors on the roll and 178,428 holding practising certificates.
- Written precision and draftingskillRequired
SQE2 assesses legal writing, drafting, research, advocacy, interviewing and case analysis directly. These are the skills the job is actually made of, and they are examined rather than assumed.
- Commercial awarenessskillOptional
Not examined, but it is what most City and in-house recruitment screens on, and what separates candidates with identical SQE results at the QWE stage.
A day in the life of a Solicitor
Most solicitors' days are built around other people's deadlines. A commercial solicitor's morning typically starts with email triage — overnight responses from the other side, a client asking whether something can complete this week — then moves into drafting or marking up documents, the core billable work and the part that needs uninterrupted time it rarely gets. Calls with clients and opposing solicitors punctuate the day, each one a negotiation about scope, risk and timing. Afternoons bring internal meetings, supervising junior colleagues' drafts, and the administrative reality of private practice: recording time in six-minute units, chasing unpaid bills, and completing anti-money-laundering checks before work can start. A litigator's rhythm is set by court timetables and disclosure deadlines instead, with periods of relative calm broken by weeks where a hearing consumes everything. A high-street solicitor sees far more clients and far more human distress — probate, divorce, a house purchase falling through — and spends more of the day explaining and reassuring. Across all of them the constants are the same: written precision, chargeable-hour pressure, and personal responsibility for advice that clients act on.
Is it worth it to be a Solicitor?
Qualifying as a solicitor is worth it if you want a licensed profession with a genuinely open front door. The SQE removed the two things that used to gate it: you no longer need a law degree, and you no longer need a training contract. Two years of paralegal work at a modest firm now counts towards qualification the same way a magic-circle training contract does, and if you self-study the entire regulatory cost is £5,226 — less than a fifth of what the old LPC-plus-training-contract path assumed. The profession is growing, at about 3.1% in practising solicitors over the year to July 2026, and the ONS median of £56,977 is roughly £18,000 above the all-employee full-time median. It is not worth it if you are counting on the exams being the hard part. They are not: SQE1's 53% overall pass rate in January 2026 is a real obstacle, but the genuine bottleneck is finding two years of qualifying work experience, which has no application window, no clearing process and no guarantee at the end of a good result. Self-funding candidates carry the whole risk themselves — you can pay £5,226 or £53,400, pass everything, and still be looking for QWE. The published median also flatters the early years badly: it includes experienced lawyers, and it excludes equity partners entirely, so it describes neither the top nor the bottom of the profession. And it is the wrong career for anyone who wants predictable hours or dislikes being accountable for other people's worst weeks — much of the work is deadline-driven, adversarial and carried out for clients in the middle of a crisis.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Assuming you must buy an SQE preparation course. The SRA says in terms that courses are optional and that self-study is a legitimate low-cost route; the difference between self-study and a London LLM is about £18,850.
- Waiting for a training contract before starting qualifying work experience. QWE can be earned in paralegal roles, law clinics and in-house teams across up to four organisations, before or after the exams — time spent waiting is time not counting.
- Treating SQE1 as a formality because SQE2 pass rates are high. They measure different things: 53% passed SQE1 overall in January 2026 against 85% of all SQE2 attempts, and a resit costs the full £2,006 again.
- Budgeting for the exams and forgetting admission. The £100 admission fee and the £34 Atlantic Data screening are separate, and a practising certificate is an additional annual cost after you are on the roll.
- Reading the ONS median as an early-career salary. It covers all employed solicitors and lawyers at all levels of experience, and excludes equity partners entirely, so it describes neither a first job nor the top of the profession.
- Applying the SQE route to Scotland or Northern Ireland. Both have separate regulators, separate qualifications and separate costs; nothing on an England-and-Wales route transfers.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to become a solicitor?
About five years at the fastest: a three-year degree plus two years of qualifying work experience, with SQE1 and SQE2 taken along the way. Six years is more typical for non-law graduates who add a conversion or preparation year, and a solicitor apprenticeship takes around six years straight from school. Because QWE has no fixed start date, the real variable is how quickly you find it.
What does it actually cost to qualify?
£5,226 at minimum if you already have a degree and self-study: SQE1 £2,006 and SQE2 £3,086 from autumn 2026, plus £100 admission and £34 screening. Add a preparation LLM (£14,900–£18,850) and a three-year degree (£29,370 at the 2026/27 cap) and the full route from scratch is about £53,400. The SRA is clear that courses are optional, which is the single most expensive assumption to get wrong.
Do I need a training contract?
No. That was the old route. Under the SQE you need two years of qualifying work experience, which can come from paralegal roles, law clinics or in-house work across up to four organisations, before, during or after the exams. Training contracts still exist and still pay best, but they are no longer the only door — and that is the biggest practical change the SQE made.
How hard is the SQE?
SQE1 is the real filter. In the January 2026 sitting 7,918 candidates sat both parts and 53% passed, 58% among first-attempt candidates; first-time pass rates have ranged from 46% to 60% since the assessment launched. SQE2 is much kinder, with 85% of all attempts passing. Resits cost the same as the original assessment, so a failed SQE1 is a £2,006 setback, not a small one.
Is the profession still growing?
Yes, steadily. SRA figures show practising solicitors rising from 173,017 in July 2025 to 178,428 in July 2026, about 3.1% in a year, with 214,080 on the roll. That is genuine growth, but it says nothing about entry-level competition: more than 30,000 candidates have sat SQE1 since 2021 across 50 countries, and the bottleneck for new entrants is qualifying work experience, not the size of the profession.
Does this route apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland?
No, and this is a common and expensive mistake. The SQE and the SRA cover England and Wales only. Scotland has an entirely separate route through the Law Society of Scotland — an accredited LLB or accelerated route, the Diploma in Professional Legal Practice, and a two-year traineeship — and Northern Ireland qualifies solicitors through the Law Society of Northern Ireland and the Institute of Professional Legal Studies. None of the figures on this page transfer.
Sources
Every figure on this page traces to one of these primary sources.
- 1Admission to the roll of solicitors and related fees — Solicitors Regulation Authority · accessed August 20, 2026
- 2Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2025 (provisional), Table 14.7a — SOC 2412 Solicitors and lawyers — Office for National Statistics · accessed August 20, 2026
- 3How much does the SQE cost? — SQE1 and SQE2 assessment fees — Solicitors Regulation Authority · accessed August 20, 2026
- 4LLM Legal Practice (SQE1&2) — 2026/27 course fees from 1 July 2026 — The University of Law · accessed August 20, 2026
- 5LLM SQE 1 and 2 — 2026-27 course fees — BPP University Law School · accessed August 20, 2026
- 6Population of solicitors in England and Wales — monthly register data to July 2026 — Solicitors Regulation Authority · accessed August 20, 2026
- 7Qualifying work experience — Solicitors Regulation Authority · accessed August 20, 2026
- 8Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) route — the four requirements — Solicitors Regulation Authority · accessed August 20, 2026
- 9SQE training options — courses are optional — Solicitors Regulation Authority · accessed August 20, 2026
- 10SQE1 January 2026 statistical report — Solicitors Regulation Authority · accessed August 20, 2026
- 11Student finance for new full-time students — 2026 to 2027 tuition fee loan — GOV.UK · accessed August 20, 2026
- 12The SQE four years on — facts and figures (29 January 2026) — Solicitors Regulation Authority · accessed August 20, 2026