What is the SQE, the route to qualifying as a solicitor?

The way people qualify as solicitors in England and Wales changed fundamentally in September 2021, when the Solicitors Regulation Authority introduced the Solicitors Qualifying Examination, universally shortened to the SQE. It replaced a system built around the Legal Practice Course and, for non-law graduates, the Graduate Diploma in Law, and it was designed to create a single, consistent standard that every intending solicitor must meet regardless of how they got there.

The SQE is a centralised assessment in two stages. SQE1 tests what the regulator calls functioning legal knowledge through multiple-choice questions covering the substantive and procedural law a newly qualified solicitor is expected to know. SQE2 tests practical legal skills, the everyday competencies of the job, including client interviewing, advocacy, legal drafting, legal research and case analysis. Candidates must pass SQE1 before they can sit SQE2.

Passing the exams is only part of the picture. To qualify, a candidate also needs a degree in any subject or an equivalent qualification, must complete two years of qualifying work experience, and must satisfy [the SRA](/how-solicitors-must-handle-client-money/ “il”)’s character and suitability requirements. The qualifying work experience is deliberately flexible: it can be gained in up to four different placements, in a range of settings such as a law firm, a legal clinic or an in-house team, and it does not have to be the single two-year training contract that dominated the old route. That flexibility is one of the reforms intended to widen access to the profession, alongside the fact that candidates can prepare for the exams in different ways rather than through one prescribed course.

The stated aims of the change were consistency and openness. Under the previous system, standards could vary between the many providers of the Legal Practice Course, and the training contract acted as a bottleneck, with more course graduates than available places. A single national exam gives every candidate the same assessment, and the broader definition of qualifying work experience is meant to remove some of the barriers that made the traditional route hard to enter.

The transition has not been instant. Those who had already started, or accepted an offer for, the older qualifications before September 2021 retain the option to qualify under the previous route for a transitional period running to the end of 2032. New entrants, however, now overwhelmingly go through the SQE, and the exam has quickly become the defining hurdle for anyone setting out to become a solicitor. Preparation courses have grown up around it, and firms have adapted their trainee recruitment to the new structure, but the core proposition is straightforward: one exam, one standard, whoever you are and however you studied.