How to become a lawyer in the UK depends on two choices: which profession, and which nation. In England and Wales a solicitor now qualifies through the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), and a barrister through a degree, a Bar course and pupillage. Scotland and Northern Ireland have routes of their own; our guide to becoming a doctor in the UK follows the same pattern for medicine. EdCitation publishes this guide; each requirement, fee and date in it was checked at the regulator or professional body on 27 September 2026. It is general information, not legal or career advice, and nothing here promises a training contract, a pupillage, a job or a salary.
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Which route to becoming a lawyer in the UK suits you?
There are eight main routes. Lengths and costs appear only where the official source states them.
| Route | How long, as the source states it | What it costs, where stated | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solicitor, England and Wales (SQE) | Degree or equivalent, SQE1 and SQE2, two years' qualifying work experience | SQE1 £2,006 and SQE2 £3,086 for bookings from October 2026; admission £100 | SRA |
| Solicitor apprenticeship, England | Five to six years from A levels; two to three years for graduates | SQE training and assessment paid through the apprenticeship levy | SRA |
| Barrister, England and Wales | Degree (plus a conversion course for non-law graduates), a Bar course, 12 months' pupillage | Pupils paid at least £25,863 in London and £23,504 elsewhere in 2026 | Bar Standards Board |
| CILEX lawyer | The CILEX Professional Qualification and at least 2,300 hours' qualifying experience | Not stated on the pages read | CILEX; CILEx Regulation |
| Solicitor, Scotland | LLB (two years if accelerated), a one-year Diploma, a two-year traineeship | Not stated | Law Society of Scotland |
| Advocate, Scotland | Entrance exams, then about nine months' unpaid devilling | £493 on lodging the petition | Faculty of Advocates |
| Solicitor, Northern Ireland | Law degree, then a two-year training contract that includes the IPLS course | £187.50 registration, £50 admission | Law Society of Northern Ireland |
| Barrister, Northern Ireland | Law degree or conversion, the IPLS Bar diploma, a year's pupillage | Not stated | Bar of Northern Ireland |
| Reading and checking sources for a law degree | Every year of study | Free, no account | EdCitation's Find sources and Verify references |
How do you become a solicitor in England and Wales through the SQE?
You need four things: a degree in any subject or an equivalent level 6 qualification, passes in both SQE1 and SQE2, two years' full-time qualifying work experience or its equivalent, and a pass in the regulator's suitability checks (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2025d). A law degree is not required. Equivalents include a level 6 or 7 apprenticeship or professional qualification, and the SRA says it may count workplace experience when there is no such qualification (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2026a).
SQE1 and SQE2
SQE1 tests functioning legal knowledge in two assessments, FLK1 and FLK2, each of 180 single-best-answer questions split into two sessions of 90, with 2 hours and 33 minutes a session; ethics runs through both (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2025e). SQE2 tests legal skills: four oral assessments over two half-days and 12 written assessments over three half-days (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2026c). SQE1 is sat in January and July; SQE2 in January, April, July or October (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2026a).
In the January 2026 SQE1, 58% of the 6,760 first-time candidates passed and 53% of all 7,863 candidates; in the October 2025 SQE2, 79% of first-timers passed and 78% of all 1,342 candidates (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2026b).
What the SQE costs from October 2026
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (2026b) set the 2026/27 fees at £2,006 for SQE1 and £3,086 for SQE2, up from £1,934 and £2,974, for anyone who books to sit from October 2026 onwards. That is £5,092 in assessment fees alone. Preparation courses cost extra. Before admission there is a £34 background screening and a £100 admission fee, with the practising certificate charged separately (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2025a).
Qualifying work experience
Qualifying work experience is two years' full-time or equivalent providing real legal services, in no more than four organisations, each period confirmed by a solicitor or the firm's compliance officer (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2024a). It can come before, during or after the exams, and paid and volunteer work both count. A role must give you the chance to develop at least two of the solicitor competences, and simulated work does not count. Most training contracts are now offered as qualifying work experience for the SQE route (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2025b).
Character and suitability
You declare matters such as criminal or financial conduct and assessment offences when you apply for admission, not when you start training, and may ask for an early assessment at any time (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2024b).
Is the Legal Practice Course still open?
Only under transitional rules: anyone who began a law degree in September 2022 or later must take the SQE, and the LPC route closes to admission on 31 December 2032 (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2025b).
How does a solicitor apprenticeship work?
A solicitor apprenticeship lets you qualify while employed, in England only; it is not available in Wales. The trailblazer route usually takes five to six years from A levels and ends with a level 7 qualification; the graduate route takes two to three years. At least 20% of the time is off-the-job training, the apprenticeship itself counts as qualifying work experience, and every apprentice must still pass both parts of the SQE, with SQE2 as the end-point assessment (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2025c). Employers set their own entry requirements.
From January 2026, government funding for level 7 apprenticeships covers only people aged 16 to 21 when they start, or under 25 with an Education, Health and Care plan or a care background; anyone already on an apprenticeship is funded to the end (Skills England, n.d.). Vacancies are on GOV.UK's apprenticeship finder; our guide to a cover letter covers the application.
How do you become a barrister in England and Wales?
Training for the Bar has three parts: the academic component, the vocational component, and pupillage. The Bar Standards Board (2026d) says plainly that far more people want to be barristers than there are places.
The degree and the law conversion course
You need a degree of at least a 2:2. If it is not in law, or your law degree is over five years old or missed one of the seven foundation subjects, you take a law conversion course, the Graduate Diploma in Law. (Bar Standards Board, 2026b).
The Bar course and the Inns of Court
The vocational component is a Bar training course, taken full-time over a year, part-time for longer, in two parts, or inside an integrated law degree (Bar Standards Board, 2026g). Before it starts you must join one of the four Inns of Court (Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple or Middle Temple), applying at least 12 weeks ahead. You join only one. The Inns run the qualifying sessions you must attend, offer scholarships, and are the only bodies that can Call you to the Bar (Bar Standards Board, 2026e).
Pupillage
Pupillage is normally two periods of six months, first non-practising and then practising, under a pupil supervisor. Vacancies are on the Pupillage Gateway, which opens for applications in January (Bar Standards Board, 2026a). The Bar Standards Board (2025) set the minimum award from 1 January 2026 at £25,863 a year in London and £23,504 elsewhere. Its statistics count 577 pupils starting the non-practising stage in 2024/25, against 655 in 2023/24 (Bar Standards Board, 2026f).
A barrister apprenticeship standard was published in December 2024, but the Bar Standards Board (2026c) says no apprenticeship is yet open to applicants.
What about CILEX lawyers?
A CILEX lawyer, or Chartered Legal Executive, qualifies through CILEX and is authorised by CILEx Regulation. After the CILEX Professional Qualification, CILEX (n.d.) asks for at least 2,300 hours of qualifying experience under supervision, with three years' general legal experience. CILEx Regulation (n.d.) sets the same 2,300 hours, with at least a year in the Graduate or Advanced Paralegal grade of membership. We could not find the course's length or cost on the pages we read.
How do you qualify in Scotland or Northern Ireland?
Scotland: solicitors and advocates
Most Scottish solicitors take an accredited Scots law LLB, then the one-year Diploma in Professional Legal Practice, then a two-year traineeship under a Scottish solicitor. Graduates of another subject can take an accelerated LLB in two years, and a pre-PEAT training contract is the alternative to university (Law Society of Scotland, n.d.-a, n.d.-b). The Society's pages disagree on the number of accredited LLB providers, 10 or 11, so check yours.
Advocates, Scotland's barristers, train with the Faculty of Advocates. An intrant sends an LLB, a Diploma and a status report from the Law Society, pays £493 in court and Faculty fees, and sits exams in Practice and Procedure and Evidence (Faculty of Advocates, n.d.-a). Then comes devilling, about nine months of unpaid training beside an experienced advocate (Faculty of Advocates, n.d.-b).
Northern Ireland
A law degree with eight core subjects, an offer from the Institute of Professional Legal Studies after its December admissions test, and a solicitor willing to act as your master come first; the training contract then runs for two years, with a year at the Institute in the middle (Law Society of Northern Ireland, n.d.). For the Bar, the Institute's Bar diploma offers 20 places a year on the admissions test, entrants typically hold a 2:1, and pupillage lasts about a year (Bar of Northern Ireland, n.d.-a, n.d.-b).
Do you need the LNAT to study law?
Only for some universities. The LNAT is required for undergraduate law at Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow, King's College London, LSE, Oxford, SOAS and UCL (LNAT Consortium, n.d.-b). It lasts 2¼ hours: 42 multiple-choice questions on 12 passages in 95 minutes, then one essay from a choice of three in 40 minutes (LNAT Consortium, n.d.-d).
For 2027 entry, testing began on 1 September 2026. Oxford and Cambridge applicants sit it by 15 October 2026; KCL, LSE and UCL applicants by 31 December; Bristol and Durham by 13 January 2027; the rest by 25 January (LNAT Consortium, n.d.-a). The UCAS (n.d.) deadlines are 15 October at 18:00 for Oxford and Cambridge and 13 January 2027 at 18:00 for most courses. The test costs £75 at UK and EU centres and £120 elsewhere, with a bursary for students on certain benefits (LNAT Consortium, n.d.-c). Three of those pages still carry last cycle's wording, so confirm the dates and the fee when you book.
A timeline from sixth form to qualifying as a solicitor
We built this timeline ourselves around one case: a school leaver who begins a three-year law degree in September 2027 and qualifies through the SQE. Experience can come at any point.
- Summer 2026: book the LNAT from 1 August if any of your universities ask for it.
- By 13 January 2027: send your UCAS application (by 15 October 2026 for Oxford or Cambridge), with a personal statement you wrote yourself.
- September 2027: search the secondary literature with Find sources and keep what you cite in a free EdCitation account.
- Each essay: write OSCOLA footnotes by hand from the Oxford guide, and run any reference list in another style through Verify references.
- Holidays from year two: paralegal or pro bono work can count as qualifying work experience if a solicitor confirms it.
- Final year: apply for training contracts and graduate roles; our guide to graduate interviews helps.
- After graduating: SQE1 in a January or July sitting, then SQE2.
- Two years' experience complete: screening, the suitability declaration and admission.
How does EdCitation help law students?
EdCitation is the best tool for the part of a law student's reading it covers, because each reference it gives is looked up in the publisher's record and never written. Law students cite in OSCOLA; the University of Oxford Faculty of Law (n.d.) publishes its fifth edition free online, with styles for Zotero, EndNote and LaTeX. EdCitation does not build OSCOLA: Cite a source formats APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, which suit a criminology, policy or joint-honours module. Our guide to referencing at UK universities shows who asks for which.
A legal-education search, run for this guide
For this guide, Find sources was asked on 27 September 2026 for "legal education professional skills law graduates", most cited first. Crossref answered, with 5,856,301 records in total. The third result was "Lawyers' wellbeing and professional legal education" by Colin James, The Law Teacher, 2008, cited 15 times. The first was about accounting graduates: narrow your words.
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Quick questions
Can you become a solicitor without a law degree?
Yes. The SRA accepts a degree in any subject, or an equivalent qualification, alongside the SQE and qualifying work experience.
How much does the SQE cost?
For bookings from October 2026, SQE1 costs £2,006 and SQE2 £3,086, £5,092 in all, before any preparation course, screening or the £100 admission fee.
How long does it take to become a barrister?
A degree of at least a 2:2, a Bar course of about a year full-time, and 12 months' pupillage; a non-law graduate adds a law conversion course first.
Do you still need a training contract?
Not on the SQE route. Two years' qualifying work experience takes its place, and most training contracts are now offered on that basis.
Can EdCitation format OSCOLA footnotes?
No. EdCitation's Cite a source builds six other styles; for law, use Oxford's free OSCOLA guide, and use Find sources and Verify references for the secondary reading.
References
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- Bar of Northern Ireland. (n.d.-b). Qualifying to train as a barrister in Northern Ireland. https://barofni.com/becoming-a-barrister/education-training
- Bar Standards Board. (2025, November 7). Bar Standards Board announces minimum pupillage award from 1 January 2026. https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/resources/press-releases/bar-standards-board-announces-minimum-pupillage-award-from-1-january-2026.html
- Bar Standards Board. (2026a, September 18). About pupillage. https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/training-qualification/pupillage/about-pupillage.html
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- Faculty of Advocates. (n.d.-a). Becoming an 'intrant' (a candidate to train as an advocate). https://www.advocates.org.uk/about-advocates/life-at-the-scottish-bar/becoming-an-intrant-a-candidate-to-train-as-an-advocate
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