Qualified barristers in private practice with around five years’ experience can earn anything from around £50,000 to £200,000. For those with over ten years’ experience, earnings can range from £65,000 to £1,000,000. As an employed barrister, you can expect to earn from around £25,000 to in excess of £100,000.

Essential qualifications

• Either an approved law degree – known as a qualifying law degree – at class 2:2 or above.
• Or a degree at 2:2 or above in any other subject, followed by a postgraduate Common Professional Examination (CPE) or Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)
• Vocational training.
• Pupillage.

What GCSEs should I take to become a lawyer? To study law, you’ll need at least five GCSEs (or equivalent Level 2 qualifications) at grade 4/C or above, including Maths, English Language and Science. Courses are competitive, so you should aim for the highest grades possible.

Solicitors have a more stable income but the top barristers get paid more than most top solicitors; although the average solicitor may be paid more. Add to that the one year barristers have to spend in pupillage/deviling and the risks of taking the barrister path are higher.

Barristers can be distinguished from a solicitor because they wear a wig and gown in court. They work at higher levels of court than solicitors and their main role is to act as advocates in legal hearings, which means they stand in court and plead the case on behalf of their clients in front of a judge.

Graham Aaronson QC, Michael Flesch QC and David Goldberg QC, are, according to this year’s Legal 500 of leading barristers and solicitors, the highest earners at the Bar. They are closely followed by three commercial silks, led by the Labour peer Lord Grabiner QC, who are each estimated to have earned £1.25m last year.

Time spent on preparation added to time spent in court on the first day comes to 19 hours. The brief fee for a full day hearing for a barrister whose hourly rate is £250 will therefore be £4,750 plus VAT.

It costs £150 for UK and European Union (EU) applicants and £170 for international students. More information and a practice test is available at TalentLens – The Bar Course Aptitude Test (BCAT).

Criminal QCs are comparatively poor relations, with annual earnings of £200,000 to £425,000 and a top rate of £400 an hour. A number of QCs specialising in tax, commercial law, and chancery (wills, property and trusts) pocket as much as £2m a year.

Becoming a fully-fledged barrister takes five years – including three years for your law degree, one year for a Bar course and a one-year pupillage in chambers. Again, add an extra year for a law conversion course if your degree wasn’t in law.

Being a barrister can be immensely satisfying in that it offers an opportunity to provide the specialist knowledge that can assist a client in obtaining their desired result, and therefore make a real difference to their lives. You are offering advice and representation to clients at a very stressful time.

18 year-old

The path to becoming a barrister is very challenging and competitive. Aspiring barristers can come from any degree discipline and they will need to undertake additional training and study after they leave university.

Different barristers may charge for their work in different ways. For example, they may charge by the hour, or offer you a fixed fee for a particular piece of work, or how much you pay may depend on whether you win your case or not.

In Crown Court criminal cases barristers wear traditional gowns and wigs. Solicitors also wear gowns and have the option of wearing a wig. Salaries for CPS crown prosecutors start from £27,393 (in London, £29,296 plus a £3,000 allowance).

Fees range up to £12,250 (for a full-time course in London) but these can be significantly less outside London. Added to these fees are your own living costs. As of September 2020, the BPTC was replaced by a range of Bar course options.

To run up expenses of £127,000, a student would have to complete a non-law degree at a university charging the highest rate of £9,000 per year. They would then have to decide to become a barrister afterwards, and take a conversion course, followed by a bar training course – which on its own can cost up to £19,000.

BPTC courses can cost up to £19,000. The overall figures include costs for accommodation, subsistence and tuition fees over five years. Annual living costs in the capital, based on National Union of Students calculations, are about £13,000.

Starting from September 2021, the UK will have a single standardised bar exam for all future solicitors – the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). The situation with no single bar examination for solicitors will soon be history.