SQE fees

The SRA has agreed the annual increase in candidate fees for the SQE assessment. The fee rise will take effect from the start of the new academic year in September 2026, and apply to any candidate that books to take the SQE2 from October 2026 onwards.

The SQE1 assessment fee will go up from £1,934 to £2,006

The SQE2 assessment fee will rise from £2,974 to £3,086.00.

The increase reflects inflation and a small additional uplift towards the costs of translating the assessments into Welsh.

Learn more: Costs and fees

SQE Annual Report

The latest SQE annual report covers the period from October 2024 to July 2025. In this period there were two assessment sittings for SQE1, which tests candidates’ functioning legal knowledge, and four for SQE2, which tests both the application of legal knowledge and skills.

The report includes information including:

• assessment analyses covering information such as the number of candidates that took an assessment, attempt number and candidate progression/journeys through the SQE
• summary of candidates’ results focusing on pass rates
• pass rates by demographic characteristics
• candidate performance by practice area
• feedback and continuous improvement (Table 24) which summarises some of the key areas brought to our attention for improvement, and what we are doing in response
• a section with a special focus on reasonable adjustments (Section 10).

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