Qualifying work experience: how solicitors now train under the SQE system

From training contract to qualifying work experience

For decades, becoming a solicitor in England and Wales meant securing a training contract: a fixed two-year period at a single firm, structured around defined seats in different practice areas, overseen by a training principal, and governed in detail by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). It was a scarce, competitive prize, particularly at larger firms, and it was the only recognised route into the profession alongside the old academic and vocational stages.

The SRA’s Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) framework replaced that model with something looser: qualifying work experience, usually shortened to QWE. The exams themselves (SQE1 and SQE2) are covered elsewhere; this explainer focuses on the experience side, which is the part that most changes how firms actually train people and how candidates build a career.

What counts as qualifying work experience

Under the current framework, QWE is defined by function rather than form. A candidate needs to complete a total period of full-time equivalent legal work experience, gained under the supervision or oversight of a solicitor, during which they have the opportunity to develop the professional competences the SRA expects of a newly qualified solicitor. The headline figure for how long that experience must total is set by the SRA and can be checked on its website, but the key structural point is that it no longer has to be one continuous placement.

QWE can, in principle, be built up from up to a number of different employers or placements, rather than a single training contract. It can include work done before, during or after a law degree or conversion course. It can include time spent in a law firm, but also in-house legal work, a law centre, a clinical legal education scheme run by a university, or other legal work overseen by a qualified solicitor. A period of work does not need to have been designed as training in order to count; what matters is that it gave the candidate genuine exposure to legal practice and that a solicitor is willing to confirm it met the required standard.

Who signs it off

The SRA requires confirmation of qualifying work experience from a solicitor who supervised the work or who is otherwise well placed to assess it, such as a compliance officer or someone with direct oversight of the candidate’s work during that period. This is a lighter-touch checkpoint than the old training contract’s formal sign-off by a training principal, but it still means a candidate needs to keep track of who supervised each stint of experience and be able to produce that confirmation when they apply to be admitted as a solicitor.

In practice, many candidates keep a running record or portfolio noting the dates, employer, supervising solicitor and a short account of the tasks and competences involved in each placement, so that nothing is missed or forgotten by the time they come to qualify.

Why this changes recruitment

The shift matters most for people who cannot access a traditional training contract at a large firm, which remains a well paid but narrow gateway. Under QWE, a candidate could combine, for example, a period as a paralegal at a high street firm, a stint volunteering at a law centre, a university legal clinic placement, and an in-house internship, and add those together to build the required experience while sitting the SQE exams around them. This is aimed at widening access to the profession, particularly for candidates without the networks or grades traditionally favoured by City recruitment.

At the same time, large firms have generally kept something that looks very like the old training contract in substance, even though it is no longer a distinct regulatory category. Many still recruit graduates two years ahead of start dates, rotate them through seats, call the role a “trainee solicitor”, and structure the whole period so that it delivers QWE in one continuous block. For a graduate joining a big commercial firm, day-to-day life is not dramatically different from before; the difference is mainly regulatory plumbing and the fact that the same firm may also recruit non-graduates or career changers onto a solicitor apprenticeship route that blends work, study and QWE over a longer period, often six years.

What candidates need to check

Anyone assembling their own QWE from multiple placements should check, before or during each placement, that it will actually be recognised: that a solicitor is willing to supervise and later confirm the work, and that the tasks involved genuine legal work rather than purely administrative support. It is far harder to fix gaps retrospectively than to confirm eligibility at the time. The SRA publishes detailed guidance on what qualifies, how confirmations should be worded, and how the whole SQE qualification route fits together, and this should be the first port of call for anyone planning their route rather than relying on firm marketing or secondhand accounts from other candidates.

The Law Society also publishes career guidance aimed at prospective solicitors navigating the newer, more flexible landscape, including how apprenticeships and non-traditional routes sit alongside conventional training contracts.