Osborne Clarke raises NQ lawyer pay in London to £94k

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By Legal Cheek on

24

Small rises in regions too

Man receiving cash bonus
Osborne Clarke has increased the salaries of its newly qualified (NQ) associates in London by a little under 3%.

Fresh faced associates will now earn a salary of £94,000, a 2.7% uplift on the previous rate of £91,500. Trainee pay has moved from £53,000 to £54,500 in year one, and £55,000 to £56,000 in year two.

The small boost places the firm’s London NQs a thousand pounds behind those at firms like Eversheds Sutherland, Fieldfisher, Gowling WLG, and Stephenson Harwood, which offer £95,000.

In Bristol, NQ rates have increased by 2.8% to £72,000, while in Reading they have risen by 2.7%, bringing salaries from £82,350 to £84,600. Trainee pay in Bristol is now £48,000 in the first year, increasing to £50,000 in the second year. In Reading, trainees start at £49,050, rising to £50,850

The Legal Cheek Firms Most List 2024 shows that OC recruits around 35 trainees each year across its London, Bristol and Reading offices.

The 2024 Legal Cheek Firms Most List

Sarah Underhill, head of reward at Osborne Clarke, commented: “We’ve had a fantastic year, which means we can continue investing in our people and business. This success shows in our competitive pay review, increased profit share, and the new bonus structure for our top performers.”

The increases follow the firm’s recent financial results, which revealed a 14% rise in UK net profits to £84.8 million and an 11% boost in profit per equity partner (PEP) to £771,000.

The firm also awarded bonuses equivalent to 5% of annual salary to all staff, including trainees, NQ lawyers and junior lawyers.

24 Comments

Kirkland NQ

LOL, imagine getting a salary raise and still being on less than £100k, as a qualified lawyer.

Anon

You’ve been commenting under this name since I was a fresher. That was 8 years ago. Are you happy in life?

Anonymous

With all these comments, he certainly is not. Poor lad.

Litigator

Imagine being a qualified lawyer and having a life outside work!

Roops

🐓

In-house Ivan (last raise pre-financial crisis)

Any in-house salary raises in big banks?

Anon

A 14% rise in net profits for partners is matched with a paltry 2.7% boost in associate pay?! While the cost of living has gone up massively…talk about greed.

Your supervising partner

Stop complaining and run those redlines for me, the second home in Tuscany won’t pay for itself.

Anon

Associates are entirely replaceable. There are thousands of bright eager law students who miss out on TCs every year.

Partners are completely the opposite. They bring in the work that the associates do. Loss of key partners can destroy a department in a firm.

My point being that associates should be bloody grateful they are paid what they are. Serve your time, work hard and you can make partner if you want to.

Anon

Thirdly. Trainees also got the 5% profit share.

Plus, things were better for qualified fee earners: pay rises of around 5%, plus performance related bonuses of c10% for most who hit target hours.

So for those who hit target you’d (broadly) get: 5% profit share plus a 10% bonus (I.e. more than 14% partners got), and a 5% raise for the year going on.

I’d say that’s pretty fair, not greedy.

DWF Senior Associate

That basically DWF London Equity Partner salary. Bantz!

What sad lil life you have

Kirkland NQ you have a sad life, albeit lack of a life.

X

SH now pay £100k for NQs but not sure about ES and Fisher

Annonning

Not sure where you got this info from but I can confirm as a serving FE, hitting and/ or exceeding target hours does not guarantee a bonus at OC. The profit share element is guaranteed provided the firm hits its projections.

dd

Who’s rising next? Feels like every firm has risen as of late lol

As

That raise is poor. NGL

Lenkop

This is complete jokes by OC – they should prepare to see a massive exodus of London based associates. Super small increase while partners’ profits are on rise, so are hours and expectations. Very short sighted by the new management…

Tell me you’re not an NQ without telling me you’re not an NQ

An exodus you say? With the current state of the NQ market? lol next joke

A

Anyone know how Burges Salmon/Eversheds/TLT compare in Bristol? Not seen any official releases yet.

Pls explain

Why does shed NQ salary say £100k on their legal cheek bio page but on the salary pages for firms it says £95k?

Legal cheek writers can you explain?

Lurking

Is that it?

F

What do you want it to be? Delusion law students thinking £180k is the norm 🤣🤣

94k is good whack

Brian

Any news on CRS and Shed?

CRS 1PQE

88k in London and 62k in regions. Mildly depressing.

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