Remuneration: lawyers, judges and coroners command mean annual salaries of £49,970, according to official statistics

Law is one of the top-ten best paid occupations in the country, recent research has revealed.


An analysis of Office of National Statistics figures by the GMB union put the classification of ‘solicitors and lawyers, judges and coroners’ at ninth out of 342 occupational groups, with a mean annual salary of £49,970.


Top of the tree were directors and chief executives of major organisations, earning an average £162,028. Also ahead of lawyers were financial managers and chartered secretaries (£72,124), medical practitioners (£67,895), brokers (£64,290), senior officials in national government (£63,928), managers in mining and energy (£59,893), aircraft pilots and flight engineers (£56,206) and management consultants, actuaries, economists and statisticians (£51,770).


The figures from the office’s annual survey of hours and earnings relate to full-time employee jobs and so exclude the self-employed.


Another group of ‘legal professionals’ – such as not-for-profit advisers, in-house legal officers, and court clerks – came in at 47th, averaging £35,684. ‘Legal associate professionals’, including legal executives, licensed conveyancers and barristers’ clerks, were down at 81st on £30,482. Earning an average of £18,703, legal secretaries featured at 240th on the list.


The lowest-paid occupations, which all paid less than £11,000 on average, were florists, check-out operators, launderers/dry cleaners, and – bottom of the lot on £10,405 – leisure and theme-park attendants.


Paul Kenny, the GMB’s acting general secretary, highlighted the disparity between the top and the bottom. ‘There is no great indicator of the “upstairs downstairs” nature of the labour market in Britain today,’ he said.


‘The pay of all those at the bottom and in the middle of the pay league is closely controlled. However, the pay of senior managers and directors is subject to little control and the numbers and pay of these people continues to inflate. The only way to tackle the resulting inequality is via the tax system.’