An update on SQE fees and publication of the SQE Annual Report

Mar 11, 2025

SQE fees

The SRA has agreed an increase in the candidate fee for the SQE assessment. Across the two exams this means SQE1 will go up from £1,888 to £1,934 and SQE2 from £2,902 to £2,974. The fee rise will take effect from September 2025. It will therefore apply to any candidate that books to take the SQE2 in October 2025 and subsequent assessments. Fees will increase to reflect inflation and a small additional uplift towards the costs of translating the assessments into Welsh.

Learn more: Costs and fees

SQE Annual Report

The annual report covers the period July 2023 to July 2024. In this period there were two assessment sittings for SQE1, which tests candidates’ functioning legal knowledge, and five for SQE2, testing both the application of legal knowledge and skills. The outcomes of the SQE2 July 2023 assessment window are included in this annual report because they were not available for the 2022/23 annual report.

The report includes information such as assessment analyses, summary of candidates’ results, pass rates by demographic characteristics and candidate performance by practice areas. It also has a feedback and continuous improvement section (Table 23) which summarises some of the key areas brought to our attention for improvement, and what we are doing in response.

We also produce a post-assessment report after each assessment window and you can access these on the SQE reports page.

Learn more: SQE Reports