What they earn, and where the statistics put them
The Office for National Statistics publishes earnings by occupation. It does not publish them by profession, and for most of the professions on this site those are not the same thing.
These figures are about occupation codes, not about the people on these registers. An occupation code covers tens of thousands of employees, most of whom are not on any register here. What the table below shows is the box the official statistics put each profession in, and what everybody in that box earns.
Most of these professions have no code of their own
Barristers and judges have an occupation code to themselves. So do solicitors. Everybody else on this site is in a category whose name ends “n.e.c.” — not elsewhere classified — or in one that is not a legal category at all.
| Profession | As the SOC index lists it | SOC 2020 | Occupation group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notaries public | Notary | 2419 | Legal professionals n.e.c. n.e.c. |
| Licensed conveyancers | Conveyancer, licensed | 2419 | Legal professionals n.e.c. n.e.c. |
| Costs lawyers | Consultant, costs, law | 3520 | Legal associate professionals |
| Patent and trade mark attorneys | Agent, patent | 2419 | Legal professionals n.e.c. n.e.c. |
| Patent and trade mark attorneys | Agent, trademark | 3549 | Business associate professionals n.e.c. n.e.c. not legal |
| Certificated enforcement agents | Agent, enforcement | 7122 | Debt, rent and other cash collectors not legal |
| Certificated enforcement agents | Agent, enforcement, civil | 6312 | Parking and civil enforcement occupations not legal |
| Certificated enforcement agents | Bailiff, certificated | 7122 | Debt, rent and other cash collectors not legal |
| Regulated immigration advisers | Adviser, immigration | 3520 | Legal associate professionals |
| Regulated immigration advisers | Consultant, immigration | 2419 | Legal professionals n.e.c. n.e.c. |
| Claims management companies | — | no occupation code: the classification does not contain this profession | |
| Barristers | Barrister | 2411 | Barristers and judges not legal |
| Solicitors | Solicitor, commercial | 2412 | Solicitors and lawyers not legal |
| Legal Executives | Executive, legal | 2419 | Legal professionals n.e.c. n.e.c. |
6 of the 13 mappings land in a “not elsewhere classified” category, and 6 land outside the legal categories entirely. A certificated enforcement agent is filed under Debt, rent and other cash collectors; a civil enforcement agent, from the same register, under Parking and civil enforcement occupations. A trade mark attorney is a Business associate professional n.e.c. while a patent attorney — the other half of one IPReg register — is a Legal professional n.e.c.
Claims management is not in the classification at all. Every “claims” entry in the SOC index — adjudicator, administrator, adviser, manager, processor — is insurance or financial administration, which is what those words meant when the classification was written. A claims management company regulated by the FCA since 2019 appears nowhere in it, so this table shows no pay figure for it rather than borrowing one from Financial accounts managers, which would have published a salary for a profession the statistics do not contain.
Annual gross pay, by occupation
| Occupation | Employees | Median | Mean | 10th pct | 90th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solicitors and lawyers Solicitors | 127,000 | £53,314 | £68,462 | £26,807 | not published |
| Business associate professionals n.e.c. Patent and trade mark attorneys | 99,000 | £33,035 | £40,225 | £19,397 | not published |
| Legal professionals n.e.c. Notaries public; Licensed conveyancers; Patent and trade mark attorneys; Regulated immigration advisers; Legal Executives | 71,000 | £33,822 | £60,164 | £20,372 | not published |
| Legal associate professionals Costs lawyers; Regulated immigration advisers | 41,000 | £32,438 | £38,423 | £17,581 | not published |
| Barristers and judges Barristers | 28,000 | £34,253* | £43,732* | not published | not published |
| Parking and civil enforcement occupations Certificated enforcement agents | 14,000 | £27,766 | £25,474 | not published | not published |
| Debt, rent and other cash collectors Certificated enforcement agents; Certificated enforcement agents | 10,000 | £27,454 | £28,201 | not published | not published |
An asterisk marks an estimate whose coefficient of variation is above 10%, which ONS says should be used with caution. “Suppressed” means the coefficient is above 20% and this site will not print it, on the same guidance. “Not published” means ONS itself withheld the cell — and for the smaller legal occupations that is most of the upper tail: Legal professionals n.e.c. has no published 75th or 90th percentile at all, because the survey does not reach enough of them.
Why the Bar looks poorly paid, and is not
Barristers and judges show a median well below solicitors’. That is not a fact about the Bar. ASHE is drawn from PAYE records and covers employees. Self-employed practitioners are not in it, which is most of the Bar and many sole practitioners in the professions on this site.
How much that leaves out is measurable, from a different ONS survey that covers the self-employed as well:
| Occupation | In work | Self-employed | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solicitors and lawyers | 197,900 | 37,800 | 19% |
| Business associate professionals n.e.c. | 95,600 | 9,800 | 10% |
| Legal professionals n.e.c. | 74,700 | 9,900 | 13% |
| Legal associate professionals | 55,500 | 5,300 | 10% |
| Barristers and judges | 35,200 | 22,900 | 65% |
| Debt, rent and other cash collectors | 15,000 | not published | — |
| Parking and civil enforcement occupations | 11,500 | not published | — |
Two thirds of barristers and judges work for themselves. They are not in the pay table above at all, and that single figure is the whole explanation for a median that would otherwise look like a finding. The residual legal categories are far more employed — 13% and 10% self-employed — so their pay figures cover most of the people in them.
Annual Population Survey, England and Wales, latest twelve months. The APS is a sample survey and its counts are estimates. Business counts are local units, not firms: one firm with three offices is three local units.
And the same pattern in the industry classification
The occupation classification gives barristers and solicitors a code each and puts everybody else in a residual. So, independently, does the industry classification used to count businesses:
| SIC | Industry | Local units |
|---|---|---|
| 69101 | Barristers at law | 12,885 |
| 69102 | Solicitors | 14,420 |
| 69109 | Activities of patent and copyright agents; other legal activities n.e.c. | 7,680 |
Two classifications, built for different purposes by different teams, reaching the same answer: there is a box for barristers, a box for solicitors, and a box called other legal activities not elsewhere classified for everybody on this site.
UK Business Counts, England and Wales. A local unit is a place of business, not a firm: one firm with three offices is three local units.
Source
ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14 (2025provisional); SOC 2020 coding index. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Office for National Statistics. Reproduced under that licence; the figures are the ONS’s and the mapping of professions to occupation codes is read from the ONS coding index rather than assigned here.