Addleshaws pushes NQ lawyer pay to £100k

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By Lydia Fontes on

9

Rises in regions too

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Addleshaw Goddard has boosted the salaries of its newly qualified (NQ) lawyers to £100,000 in London — a 5% uplift from £95,000.

Outside the City, the firm’s newest regional associates will see an increase of 3% which brings their pay up to £65,000. Although the biggest boost comes north of the border, as NQ pay in Scotland moved from £58,000 to £61,000.

Addleshaw’s has joined the growing number of firms to break the £100,000 mark for London NQ pay, drawing level with the likes of Stephenson Harwood, Eversheds Sutherland and Dentons. The firm now offers slightly more than Shoosmiths and Pinsent Masons, both of which increased London NQ pay to £97,000 earlier this month.

 The 2025 Legal Cheek Firms Most List

A spokesperson for Addleshaw Goddard said: “We review our NQ pay annually, examining a wide range of data to inform our decision-making process. Pay is just one component of our reward package, and our pay levels are competitive with market rates across various regions.”

The Legal Cheek Firms Most List 2025 shows Addleshaw Goddard recruits roughly 60 trainees each year.

9 Comments

A Bailey

In 2015 the Magic Circle salaries were around £70,000, which today would be around £94,000 (adjusted for inflation). 100k NQ salaries for these types of firms seems pretty good from that perspective.

Balrog

What about net?

Sandra

You could probably afford to buy netting on that salary.

Istar

Agreed from an inflation perspective it’s pretty sweet. That’s just one side of the story though. Stealth tax via tax bands that haven’t been updated in years, property prices / income to property price ratios, and the general macro situation Brexit / Covid / cost of living to name a few has dented this buying power. City solicitors are very fortunate for sure and this isn’t singling out AG – but the situation is more nuanced (appreciating for example that our student debts here aren’t as high as our US colleagues and that Big Law Firms have certainly helped raise salaries for U.K. firms too).

Regional observer

Crazy how Shoosmiths is now in the salary conversation with Eversheds, AG and Pinsents

5 years ago it was compared with Mills and Reeve and similar regional outfits.

PC Chambers

Same, more or less.

Associate at proper big firm

Just to be pedantic – it’s not a 5% uplift from 95k.

Rounded up, it’s a 5% uplift or you could say salaries were previously 5% lower…

Henry

Watch out for the tax implications at that 100K level.

MR

Based on NQ salary, there is now a pretty substantial salary gap in the regions between DLA (£75k) and their traditional competitors including AG, Pinsents, Sheds, SPB (circa £63k – £65k).

Will this become an entrenched point of difference, and if so what are the consequences of that (eg DLA hoovering up the best lawyers) or will the likes of AG, Pinsents, Sheds, SPB try to close this gap?

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