Salaries for junior family lawyers are increasing faster than those of their more qualified counterparts, according to new research.
As part of its annual salary research conducted in the spring, Realm Recruit found that the average salary for solicitors NQ-3 PQE has risen by 8% compared to 2021. The most dramatic increases were found to be in private client, family and residential conveyancing, with pay up by 17%, 15% and 12% respectively for NQs, and 18%, 13% and 8% respectively for 1-3 PQE lawyers.
While salaries for more experienced lawyers have also risen, they have not increased to the same extent. Average salaries for those with four to six years’ post-qualified experience have increased by just 2%. For those with seven years’ post-qualified experience and above, average salaries have remained fairly stagnant, perhaps hampered by the larger numbers of lawyers accepting promotions without a substantial pay increase during the pandemic and the economically uncertain years that followed.
While these figures represent the average increase in pay, 29% of lawyers actually said they hadn’t had a pay rise in the last 12 months at all and, of those that had, 41% had had an increase of less than 5%.
Other key findings showed include 43% of lawyers would like more regular pay reviews and that nearly half of lawyers (46%) said they don’t feel they are paid fairly.
Realm Recruit’s managing director, Duane Cormell, commented:
“Many firms are focussing their efforts on recruiting at a junior level to reduce overheads, which is driving up the average starting salaries. We’ve seen city centre firms increasing their starting salaries the most in order to attract NQs, in exchange for which they expect higher billing and more chargeable hours.
While this is welcome news for junior lawyers, especially in the current economic climate, more experienced lawyers haven’t seen their pay increase to the same extent, and nearly half of lawyers don’t believe that they are paid fairly. We expect to see firms struggle the most to retain lawyers in the 2-7 PQE demographic in 2023, and that this is where the bulk of activity will lie.”
