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This report uses data from our Pupillage Gateway, a recruitment portal used to advertise vacancies and recruit aspiring barristers for pupillage (the work-based component of training to become a barrister). The Gateway is used by Authorised Education and Training Organisations to advertise vacancies and recruit aspiring barristers.
This report includes data useful to aspiring barristers and those engaged with barrister training, such as the number of applicants and vacancies listed on the Pupillage Gateway. The report helps us understand who obtained a pupillage and what contributed to their success.
Key findings from the report:
- The number of pupillages advertised during the 2024/25 recruitment round was 683 (compared with 671 in 2023/24), a 1.8% increase
- The total number of pupillages registered in 2024 has increased by 6.8%. Whilst the number of pupillages registered in chambers has decreased, the number of pupillages registered at the employed Bar have increased and now make up 20.5% of all registered pupillages
- Nearly a quarter of applicants (24.2%) said that they expect to have no debt (including student debt) on completion of pupillage, whilst over half of respondents (53.9%) indicated that they are anticipating some level of debt
- Women represented 57.6% of all applicants and secured 51.2% of offers recorded on the Pupillage Gateway in 2024/25, a decrease compared with the previous year. Men represented 38.7% of applicants and secured 46% of offers recorded on the Gateway, an increase compared with the previous year
- Between 2023/24 and 2024/25, the overall proportion of pupillages offered to Asian/Asian British candidates rose from 7.3% to 10.5%, whilst offers to Black candidates increased slightly from 2.7% to 3.1%. The number of offers that went to candidates of mixed ethnicity remained stable at around 9%. White candidates experienced a small decline in offers from 75.5% to 74.2%
- 11.8% of the offers recorded on the Pupillage Gateway were made to applicants with a disability, a decrease from 14.6% in 2023/24, but still an increase compared with 2022/23 (10.4%)
- Nearly half (49.5%) of all applicants went to state schools (non-selective and selective), around 16% went to independent or fee-paying schools (with or without scholarship), and about a quarter (26.5%) attended school outside the UK
- Candidates with scholarships from one of the Inns of Court have remained over 4 times more likely to receive offers than those without since 2022/23
- 54% of those who received an offer had a first-class honours degree, compared with 38% who had an upper second-class (2:1) degree. For the first time in our recorded data, 1% of candidates with a lower second-class honours degree received offers in the 2024/25 recruitment round
- Applicants who had undertaken work experience or a mini-pupillage were 4 times more likely to receive a pupillage offer than those who had not
- Candidates with lower grades in the Bar course have notably lower success rates in securing pupillage offers
