Evidence of the continued disparity between the success of solicitors and barristers in judicial selection exercises has been laid bare by the Ministry of Justice in its evidence to the Senior Salaries Review Body’s review of the judicial pay structure.

For all legal exercises in 2024/25, more than half of applications came from solicitors (56%) - who accounted for only 37% of recommendations. The proportion of non-barristers among both courts and tribunal judges has fallen from 45% to 40% since 2017. 

Barriers to judicial office faced by employed barristers and solictiors include employers' reluctance to release staff for fee-paid judicial office, the MoJ states. This is a concern as employed barristers and solicitors are a more diverse population than the self-employed bar.

According to its evidence, the MoJ ‘continues to consider policy options to increase the proportion of judges who do not have a background as a barrister, as outlined in the priorities in the judicial diversity forum priorities and actions’. 

The MoJ’s evidence details ‘persistent shortfalls’ of judicial positions on the District Bench and in specific regions, revealing that ‘high-volume’ recruitment continues with 1,000 judges and tribunal members sought annually.

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Pay increases ‘failed’ to address recruitment shortfalls but recruitment focusing on specific regions or chambers most affected is currently being trialled. ‘Some of these exercises are still reporting but early indications show that a regional or chamber-specific approach has been successful in increasing capacity where most needed,’ the MoJ states.

It added that the major review need not focus on recruitment challenges for the senior judiciary, as recruitment for leadership and senior roles in the High Court and above met all vacancy requests in the last year. Recruiting High Court judges is ‘no longer a concern’.

District judges (county and magistrates' courts), employment judges and first-tier tribunal judges have had shortfalls in meeting vacancy requests since 2019. District judges (county court) shortfalls are ‘concentrated and persistent’ in London and the South East. The same area has seen shortfalls in circuit judges in the crime jurisdiction in particular.

‘The reasons for the London and South-East shortfalls are complex but may include higher legal salaries and cost of living,’ the MoJ states. The North-East is also marked as an area which has been ‘consistently more challenging to recruit than other regions’ with ‘persistent capacity gaps’ for district and circuit judges ‘with the cluster of Humber and South Yorkshire a particularly difficult area to recruit, deploy and retain judicial resources’.

The evidence notes that North Wales ‘has seen shortfalls in fee-paid resources’ compared with West and South Wales.

In 2024/25 judicial remuneration totalled £778m across the salaried and fee-paid judiciary.