Login
The ‘inflation-busting’ salaries Aussie lawyers can expect in London
It’s “no secret” that the salaries on offer for practitioners are much higher in the UK capital than Down Under. Here, a recruiter details what Australians can expect if they make the move.
Jerome Doraisamy
Speaking recently on The Lawyers Weekly Show, Matthews and Carter Associates director Anthony Matthews outlined the salary bands Australians who practise in London can earn and their impact on one’s lifestyle while living in London and for their future planning.
Salaries, he mused, are “a lot higher” in London than in the Australian market – this, he said, is “no secret”.
The benefit of working as a lawyer, he noted, is it is one of the only professions where one will be looking at a step up in salary from Australia to the UK, which is “part in thanks to the US firms in London”.
When he started working as a recruiter one decade ago, Matthews recalled, there was a firm that was offering starting pay of £100,000 for non-qualified solicitors, which – at the time – was perceived as unsustainable.
Now, he said, that same firm pays £180,000-plus for the same role.
Such wages, Matthews proclaimed, are “inflation-busting”, particularly in the face of the exchange rate between the Aussie dollar and the pound.
Matthews notes that the magic circle firms – often the first choice for many Australians – offer NQ salaries around £150,000, equivalent to A$300,000. Meanwhile, silver circle firms offer upwards of £120,000, and US firms range from £160,000 to £185,000, depending on currency fluctuations.
“So, it is serious money in London,” he said.
Cost-of-living pressures are similar in London to that of major Australian cities right now, he continued, and as such, “if you earned £100,000 in London with no dependents, you could live in a nice area, you could save a lot of money, and you could live a very nice lifestyle”.
One’s lifestyle while living and working in London will, of course, depend somewhat on the firm that one joins, Matthews added.
“It’s fair to say that if you work for a ‘big six’ firm in Australia, the hours are pretty similar to what you’d be looking at [in a] magic circle. So, in Australian terms, you’re looking at seven to eight billable hours in a day, US firms add one, silver circle firms around seven, top-tier firms are six to seven [billables],” Matthews said.
“So, that can impact the adventure, as it were. More predictability of hours can lead to being able to jump on a Ryan Air flight and head to Europe at the weekend. Whilst in US firms, the work is obviously a little bit more intense, the trade-off of that is the incredible salaries.”
Jerome Doraisamy
Jerome Doraisamy is the editor of Lawyers Weekly. A former lawyer, he has worked at Momentum Media as a journalist on Lawyers Weekly since February 2018, and has served as editor since March 2022. He is also the host of all five shows under The Lawyers Weekly Podcast Network, and has overseen the brand's audio medium growth from 4,000 downloads per month to over 60,000 downloads per month, making The Lawyers Weekly Show the most popular industry-specific podcast in Australia. Jerome is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in NSW, and a board director of Minds Count.
You can email Jerome at:
