It’s 11 years since the SRA abolished the mandatory minimum trainee salary. Since then, firms have only been required to pay the statutory national minimum and living wage.
Stipulating what law firms must pay was already anachronistic by 2014 – a relic of a ‘managed capitalism’ long since consigned to history. A regulator seized by free-market zeal was never going to let it survive for long.
Chancery Lane continues to recommend minimum trainee salaries, nevertheless. This week the Society suggested a 2.45% salary increase. Trainees outside London should be paid £24,916, and £28,090 in the capital for qualifying work experience for the Solicitors Qualifying Exam, or during their training contract.
It is commendable that the representative body wants to keep aspiring young lawyers out of the breadline. But I do wonder whether this annual ritual still serves a useful purpose.
Quite a few smaller firms bridle at being told what they should pay, while for the bigger beasts, these minima are superfluous. Moreover, we don’t know if legal employers take any notice. No one collects data on trainee wages and firms are certainly not obliged to provide it.
I also wonder at the seeming arbitrariness of the sums proposed. Let’s crunch some numbers.
A 2.45% uplift to £28,090 pays less than £2,000 a month net. London rents are rising at 11% annually. A trainee living in the capital can therefore expect to hand 50% (and likely more) of their post-tax income to a landlord. That leaves under £250 a week for everything else, including bills.
When a half-decent loaf costs pushing two quid at Tesco, £250 is less than it sounds. Cutting out the avocado toast at Gail’s is not the panacea for feckless youth that the tabloid press would have you believe.
Many trainees are going to have other means, some will argue. The Bank of Mum and Dad, notably, or at least a credit card to be maxed out. Perhaps, but if so, the recommended minimum is otiose anyway.
A better argument is that the salary recommendations serve as a useful ‘nudge’ for a profession which – as the Legal Services Board reminds us – is notorious for its lack of social mobility.
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