Understanding what’s included in your SQE2 results

Summary

The key sections of the SQE2 results page are the:

  • assessment results overview,
  • detailed SQE2 breakdown of marks, and
  • additional information.

There is also a short video that provides a quick explanation of your SQE2 results page.

Results page overview

At the top of each set of results it will show your candidate name you are registered with and your candidate ID number.

Results are then presented for SQE2.

For each assessment taken from January 2025 you will see the following information:

Dates of SQE2 written. The dates that the written assessment took place.

Dates of SQE2 oral. The dates that the oral assessment took place.

Date of transcript. The date that results for the SQE assessment are released.

Attempt number. The number of attempts you have had at the assessment.

Deadline to pass SQE. How long to have left to pass the SQE. You have six years from the date of your first attempt of an SQE assessment.

Scaled score to pass: The score required to pass the assessment expressed as a scaled score out of 500. It will always be 300.

So that we can offer more choice to you on when you can sit the assessment, but maintain the integrity of the assessment, there can be multiple oral and written papers in an assessment window. If two candidates with the same ability take different papers their percentage scores might differ due to the slight variation in the difficulty of the papers. Converting the percentage score to a scaled score places the results on a common scale and so allows scores to be directly compared to reflect the candidates’ relative performance which enables us to still achieve accurate and fair comparisons between test takers.

Your scaled score. The score you achieved in the assessment expressed as a scaled score out of 500. This score is derived from your percentage score. We use a formula or conversion table to convert your percentage score to a scaled score. The conversion is adjusted to account for the difficulty of each assessment, as there can be slight variations between assessments. Therefore, a scaled score pass mark of 300 does not equate to a score of 60%. This is in line with our marking and standard setting policy and best practice whereby there is no predetermined passmark or pass rate for each assessment.

Your mark as a percentage. The score you achieved in the assessment expressed as a percentage.

Quintile. Quintiles are calculated by dividing the candidates into five equal groups based on performance in the assessment. This shows in which fifth of the data your score was placed relative to all of those who took the assessment with you, with 1 being placed in the highest scoring fifth and 5 in the lowest scoring fifth of the assessment’s scores.

Those five equal groups are:

  • 1st (top) quintile received a score in the top 20% for that assessment (i.e. candidates in this quintile are in the top 20% of performers)
  • 2nd quintile in the next 21% to 40%
  • 3rd quintile in the next 41-60%
  • 4th quintile in the next 61-80%
  • 5th quintile in the final 81-100%

Result. This is the overall outcome of your assessment showing if you have passed the assessment

There are also functions that allow you to save your results as a PDF document and to view your previous results.

SQE2 breakdown of marks

The next section shows the scores recorded against each of the assessment criteria for each of the assessment stations that you participated in. In this example you can see this station assesses Advocacy in the practice area of Criminal Litigation.

Screenshot of candidate portal showing example of Advocacy OPT results

When we calculate the score for each station, Skills and Law are equally weighted, so we calculate a percentage for both based on these scores, and then average them together to create the score for the station. Both oral and written stations follow an identical process.

The Client Interview and Attendance Note/Legal Analysis station that assessed Property Practice is calculated in the same way, but the score here for Skills is based on the Skills score for Client Interview and the Skills score for Attendance Note/Legal Analysis averaged together. The Law mark comes solely from the Attendance Note/Legal Analysis part of the assessment. This is because the assessors playing the role of client in the client interview are not solicitors and do not mark the law.

If you are resitting SQE2, you may find it helpful to review your detailed breakdown of marks from previous attempts to understand if there are areas to focus your revision on. It may be a practice area, assessment station(s) or certain criteria (skills or law).

Additional information

There are also links to other information provided at the bottom of your online results page, including a link to the page with the statistical report for each assessment. This will help you to book your next assessment or resit, understand how the pass mark is set for the assessment, review the assessment regulations and appeals policy, understand how you can apply to the SRA for for admission to the roll of solicitors of England and Wales, and contact us if you have any queries.

How to calculate your percentage score

Video explanation. You will find it helpful to view a short video which provides an explanation of the steps taken to calculate your individual marks. The video has an example of the marks allocated to assessment criteria including information on how the marks allocated are converted into a numerical value and your final result. It also includes an explanation of why a candidate can receive a score of 0 for any of the assessment criteria. This can help put into context that each SQE2 assessment consists of 16 stations or exercises, and that even though you may perform badly in one or more stations, you can still pass the assessment overall as the passmark is set for the assessment as a whole.

Note: The video is based on a results page for the April 2022 SQE2. The combination of stations on day 1 and 2 of the written assessments can vary between SQE2 assessment windows. Please see the SQE2 Assessment Specification for more information.

Learn more: Video: SQE2 marks explained

Summary flow chart. We also have a flow chart summary of the process for calculating your SQE2 percentage score for each of the 16 assessment stations.

Key steps for calculating your percentage score. We have also produced a resource which shows in greater detail the 8 key steps taken to calculate your final percentage results from your individual station scores. In this example scores are shown rounded to 1 decimal place in steps 1-7, but please note that you MUST use unrounded scores in all calculations until the final score is rounded in step 8.

Detailed 8 step process for calculating SQE2 percentage score

See enlarged image for detailed 8 step process for calculating SQE2 percentage score


Ready to register for the SQE?

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Register for SQE 

Have you passed the SQE?

Find out what happens after passing the SQE and admission to the roll of solicitors.

Learn more

Ready to register for the SQE?

Create your personal SQE account and book your assessments.

Register for SQE 

Have you passed the SQE?

Find out what happens after passing the SQE and admission to the roll of solicitors.

Learn more about Have you passed the SQE?