UK legal services 2025: Legal excellence, internationally renowned

The UK legal sector is an important economic contributor

• In 2024, the sector contributed £38bn to the UK economy, equivalent to 1.5% of GVA, and posted a trade surplus of £8.9bn.
• Total revenue from legal activities in the UK increased to £52.3bn in 2024, much of which was generated by the top 100 UK law firms with turnover more than £37bn in 2023/24.
• In 2023, the sector employed around 364,000 people across the country. Leading centres of legal services’ employment include London (133,000 people) Manchester (13,000), Birmingham (13,000), Leeds (9,000), Edinburgh (6,000), Glasgow (6,000), Cardiff (4,500) and Belfast (3,364).
• In 2023, TheCityUK’s research estimates that the total tax contribution of the legal and accounting sectors to the UK public finances was £30.9bn, up from £20.5bn in 2020.

The UK is a hub for legal sector innovation

• The UK benefits from a highly developed legal market, a technology talent pipeline, and support for innovation by the government.
• Non-lawyers have been able to own and manage legal services businesses in England and Wales since the Legal Services Act 2007. Thirteen per cent of law firms in England and Wales are now operating as alternative business structures (ABS).
• The proportion of solicitors working in-house in has risen substantially over the past 10 years, reaching 25% of the profession, reflecting their increasing role as trusted business advisers.
• The UK is a global hub for the LawTech sector. There are now 376 LawTech companies operating in the UK, 270 of which are UK-founded with investment of more than £1.7bn. Of this, £139.6m was secured in 2024 alone. Fifty-eight per cent of these companies are in London, with 42% distributed across the rest of the UK.

The global reach of UK legal services

Legal services are an integral part of the financial and related professional services ecosystem that makes the UK one of the world’s leading international financial centres. The strength of the UK legal services sector therefore underpins the broader financial services ecosystem, and the wider economy.

The UK is a global legal centre

• The UK legal services market is the second largest in the world after the US, and the leading legal services market in Europe.
• The UK’s position as a global legal centre is reflected by the following market indicators:
  – There are more than 200 foreign law firms from around 40 jurisdictions.
  – All of the world’s top 50 law firms have offices in London, employing more than 8,500 lawyers mainly from the UK.
  – Seven of the top 20 law firms in the world by revenue have headquarters in the UK.
  – Eight of the top 20 law firms in the world, based on number of lawyers in 2021/22, have their main base of operations in the UK.
  – There are 7,538 registered foreign lawyers practising in England and Wales.
• The international expertise of the sector is demonstrated by the fact that in 2025 there are more than 9,166 solicitors of England and Wales and 800 solicitors of Scotland working abroad. In 2024, more than 2,612 barristers of England and Wales received instructions from clients based abroad (more than double the figure a decade ago), earning more than £580m from these instructions.
• The UK’s world-renowned judiciary has facilitated the growth of this sector through the Business and Property Courts, which attract high numbers of international users. In 2024: 80% of cases in the Patents Court and 72% in the Commercial Court were international in nature.
• London is seen as the world’s preferred centre for international alternative dispute resolution. In 2024, the number of civil disputes resolved through arbitration, mediation and adjudication in the UK exceeded 31,514.

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