Has the summer legal job market gone on holiday?
August is normally one of the busiest months for locum legal recruitment. This year the market has been steady rather than busy, while permanent recruitment and candidate registrations remain subdued.
Read the complete August newsletter →Locum work is usually particularly active during August. Partners, solicitors and support staff take holidays, files still need to be covered and firms often require experienced lawyers at relatively short notice.
That has not really happened in 2026. Our figures for July show fewer new locum roles, permanent vacancies and candidate registrations than during the same period last year. We recorded 47 new candidate registrations, compared with 73 in July 2025.
Candidates are not moving for the sake of moving
Most solicitors want a noticeable improvement in salary, career prospects, flexibility or quality of life before leaving their existing employer. Remote and hybrid working remain particularly important, and firms insisting on full-time office attendance are reducing the number of candidates willing to consider their vacancies.
Locum recruitment
Conveyancing remains one of the strongest areas, although rates have started to ease. The lowest conveyancing locum rates we are currently seeing are around £40 per hour.
Permanent recruitment
New vacancies are still being registered, but employers face a cautious candidate market. A realistic salary and clear working arrangements matter more than vague promises about culture.
Law firm sales
M&A activity has followed its usual summer slowdown, but four new firms were listed and five transactions had reached heads of terms stage.
Some encouragement from the wider jobs market
The latest KPMG and REC Report on Jobs provides a little more optimism. Temporary vacancies increased for the first time in two years, temporary billings continued to grow and the permanent recruitment market showed signs of stabilising.
Whether this improvement will reach the legal sector during the autumn remains to be seen. Law firms continue to recruit, but many are taking longer to make decisions and suitable candidates are carefully comparing offers against their existing positions.
What else is in the August newsletter?
- Current locum solicitor hourly rates
- Permanent solicitor and legal support salary ranges
- Ten mistakes to avoid when using AI to write a legal job advert
- Selling or merging a law firm with a local competitor
- The potential effect of COLP and COFA proposals on smaller law firms
- Government proposals concerning interest earned on client money
- Our latest £500 Ten Percent Foundation donation
Looking for legal work or recruiting?
Ten Percent Legal Recruitment assists solicitors, legal executives, licensed conveyancers, paralegals, legal cashiers, managers and support staff with permanent and locum work throughout the UK.
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Jonathan Fagan LLM FIRP is Managing Director of Ten Percent Legal Recruitment. He is a non-practising solicitor and has recruited solicitors and legal support staff for more than 25 years.
Legal Recruitment News is a free monthly publication for lawyers, law firms and in-house legal departments. Subscribe free of charge.
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