Pupillage positions hit record high, Bar Council reports

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The number of pupillage positions on offer in 2022/23 hit a new record, exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to the Bar Council’s new Pupillage Gateway report published last week.

More than 600 pupillage positions were on offer through the Pupillage Gateway in 2022/23, compared to the 489 positions before the pandemic in 2019/20. The report also found an increase in the number of applicants, from 2,782 (2021/22) to 2,979 (2022/23).

Sam Townend KC, chair of the Bar Council said that the new pupillage award record is “encouraging” and “shows that the Bar overall is doing well with chambers having confidence in the future of the profession”.

According to the report, those with first-class honours degrees received 60.1% of offers made and 36.1% were made to those with an upper second-class honours degree. Mini-pupillage attendance also had an impact: 12.7% of candidates who’d attended at least one mini-pupillage received an offer, while the percentage of applicants who received an offer but hadn’t completed a mini-pupillage was just 1.7%. Meanwhile, 17.5% of pupillage offers went to applicants that had secured a scholarship from one of the four Inns of Court.

Other findings include:

• More women (57.3%) received pupillage offers than men (38.9%).
• Nearly 61% of the 288 pupillages offers recorded on the Pupillage Gateway went to White (British/English/Welsh/Northern Irish/Scottish) applicants, while just 10.4% went to Asian/Asian British applicants and only 1.7% to Black/African/Caribbean/Black British applicants.
• Just over 10% of the offers recorded were to applicants with a disability.
• Applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds remain less likely to receive a pupillage offer (using parental occupation and free school meals as a metric).
• In terms of degree studied, 58.3% of pupillage offers went to those with a degree and 39.6% went to those from a non-law degree background. In terms of subject studied, 68.8% of those who applied for pupillage had a law degree while only 27.3% had a non-law degree. The report stated that “students who have not studied law at an undergraduate level are at no disadvantage”.

Townend added: “I hope aspiring barristers and those who have already begun their careers at the Bar find the contents of this report useful. It offers insight into the trends emerging at the recruitment stage of the profession.”

Find out how the pupillage application process works with this Oracle.