The Datum Report

Occupation 2411 · Professional occupations

Barristers and judges

Half of full-time barristers and judges in the UK earn more than £50,915 a year, and half earn less.

Barristers and judges prepare and conduct court cases on behalf of clients, preside over judicial proceedings, and pronounce judgements within a variety of court settings and tribunals.

How people enter it

Entry to training requires a qualifying law degree or postgraduate diploma. Entrants then undertake a one year Bar Professional Training Course followed by pupillage in one of the Inns of Court. The system for training of advocates in Scotland requires a postgraduate Diploma in Professional Legal Practice, followed by two years’ training as a solicitor and period of professional training lasting several months. The position of judge is obtained by appointment of those who have substantial post-qualifying experience in legal practice.

What the work involves

• becomes acquainted with the facts of a case through reading statements, law reports, and consulting with clients or other professionals
• advises client on the basis of legal knowledge, research and past precedent as to whether to proceed with legal action
• drafts pleadings and questions in preparation for court cases, appears in court to present evidence to the judge and jury, cross examines witnesses and sums up why the court should decide in their client’s favour
• hears, reads and evaluates evidence, and instructs or advises the jury on points of law or procedure
• conducts trials according to rules of procedure, announces the verdict and passes sentence and/or awards costs and damages

Also called

Advocate · Barrister · Chairman (appeals tribunal, inquiry) · Coroner · Crown prosecutor · District judge · Legal advocate · Sherriff (Scottish Courts)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for barristers and judges, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 1 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Legal professionals n.e.c. · Solicitors and lawyers