Moving for a Pay Rise? Here's What You Need to Know

At Douglas Scott Legal Recruitment, we like to keep an eye on the legal market, so we can understand developing trends and how they impact both potential clients and potential candidates. 

One major motivation for changing job roles is to secure that big pay rise: in our recent salary survey, up to 17% of respondents listed wanting an increase in pay and benefits as one of their reasons for leaving their previous role. So, if you are wanting to move for a pay rise, we have found some statistics that you may want to bear in mind.

First up is the big number – 68% of legal professionals secured a pay rise on transferring to a new role. This is a huge number and is another year-on-year increase from 2022 and 2021. As for the value of a pay rise on transferring to a new role, that number was 18%. Of course, this number does vary depending on the region, but it’s clear that a huge salary increase might not be in the offing! However, offering a salary increase to attract new talent is clearly being used by law firms and in-house companies to fill vacancies. Across the country, there is some variance in these statistics: both London and Yorkshire & the Northeast were higher than the national average at 21%, while the Midlands & the Southeast saw a lower-than-average increase of 14%. Whether there’s some regional factors at play here, it’s difficult to say, (London being a more expensive place to live than the rest of the country may be a factor in its higher-than-average statistic), but all regions of the UK are broadly in line with that average number. This has been borne out by other research: similar salary surveys show a trend in line with the numbers we have, so it shows a broad consensus across the market. These numbers are, for the most part, up on last year's statistics, or have equalled the numbers from 2022, so increases are coming year-on-year in a bid to secure new talent.

To break the numbers down a little further, Private Practice professionals who moved secured a pay rise of 17%, while, for In-House professionals, this number jumped to 20%. In-House have, to some degree, been playing catch up for a few years, although we’ve often seen bonuses and other incentives supplement this income. To look at these statistics by age, it was the younger generations that secured those highest pay rises: Generation Z (which is defined as those born between 1996 and 2010) found their pay went up by 20% on moving, with Millennials following close behind on 18%. There’s clearly a desire to attract younger people to law firms and increasing their pay on a move is clearly a tactic that is paying off. There still isn’t that much variance in other age ranges, however – Generation X saw their pay go up by 17%, while for Baby Boomers, it was 16%. Age may not be too much of a factor, but it does still show a general trend in recruiting and attempting to retain the next generation of talent.

People, whatever market they are in, are always looking for pay rises, especially when moving roles to further their career. In the legal market, these pay rises are clearly a motivating factor for people to change roles and show law firms are willing to invest to get new talent. Whether this trend continues remains to be seen, and it will be interesting to see what the statistics for 2024 show. However, if you are looking to make the move, a modest pay rise may be forthcoming.