The Datum Report

Occupation 2412 · Professional occupations

Solicitors and lawyers

Half of full-time solicitors and lawyers in the UK earn more than £56,977 a year, and half earn less.

Solicitors advise and act on behalf of individuals, organisations, businesses and government departments in legal matters.

How people enter it

Entry to training usually requires a qualifying law degree or postgraduate diploma. Apprenticeships are also available. Graduates in subjects other than law must first take a one year conversion course. All entrants undertake a one year legal practice course, followed by a two year training contract. From 2021 Solicitors also need to pass the Solicitor's Qualifying Examination.

What the work involves

• draws up contracts, leases, wills and other legal documents
• undertakes legal business on behalf of client in areas of business law, criminal law, probate, conveyancing and litigation, and acts as trustee or executor if required
• instructs counsel in higher and lower courts and pleads cases in lower courts as appropriate
• scrutinises statements, reports and legal documents relevant to the case being undertaken and prepares papers for court
• represents clients in court

Also called

Lawyer · Managing clerk (qualified solicitor) · Solicitor · Solicitor-partner · Solicitor to the council

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for solicitors and lawyers, 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. 8 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

Barristers and judges · Legal professionals n.e.c.