Becoming a solicitor

Training contract

As of 1 August 2009, the minimum salary for trainee solicitors working in Central London is £18,590 pa. For trainees working elsewhere in England and Wales, it is £16,650 pa.

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What you need to know

Summarising the key training requirements, this document briefs students and new trainees on what to expect during the training contract period.

Training trainee solicitors

SRA requirements

This 19-page document contains streamlined, must-have information for training establishments and trainee solicitors. With a browser-enabled table of contents and links to separate, detailed, topic-specific guidance, the document is your first port of call when checking the training contract requirements.

We recommend that you navigate the document using its in-text hyperlinks, along with the green 'next' and 'previous' buttons – located at the bottom centre of the Adobe® Reader® display. We strongly advise that you download and install the latest version of Adobe® Reader®. Regardless of the speed of your internet connection, you should be able to download Training trainee solicitors: the SRA requirements (PDF 166K) in less than one minute; you should also be able to download each of the supplementary forms and documents in a matter of seconds.

Forms and guidance

The information is organised under ten, self-explanatory headings:

Professional skills course

The Professional Skills Course (PSC) is offered exclusively by course providers approved by the SRA. The SRA decides the content of the course. Consult the accredited external PSC providers .

All approved course providers have demonstrated to the SRA that they can provide courses in compliance with appropriate standards. The course content and the criteria for authorisation as an approved provider are detailed in an extract from the latest version of the SRA's Professional Skills Course Guidelines (PDF 74K) .