Legal excellence, internationally renowned: UK legal services 2022

Key facts about UK legal services

• The UK’s legal services sector employed around 375,000 people in 2021, two thirds of whom are based outside London in cities across the country. Regional sector data for 2020 shows that the UK’s major centres of legal services employment include Manchester (with 13,000 in employment), Leeds (10,000), Birmingham (9,000), Bristol and Glasgow (8,000 each), Edinburgh (7,000) and Liverpool (6,000).
• In 2021, the sector contributed £30.7bn to the UK economy, equivalent to 1.6% of GVA, and posted a trade surplus of £5.4bn.
• Total revenue from legal activities in the UK increased to £41.4bn in 2021, much of which was generated by the top 100 UK law firms, who netted more than £31bn in 2021/22, a figure which has grown more than 50% over the past decade.
• The UK is the largest legal services market in Europe (valued at £41bn in 2021) and is second only to the US globally. It accounts for a third of Western European legal services fee revenue and more than 5% of global legal services fee revenue (which totalled about $713bn in 2021).
• The UK is home to a wide range of international law firms with more than 200 foreign law firms from around 40 jurisdictions now operating in the country and all of the world’s top 40 law firms having an office in London.
• The UK’s position in legal services is helped by the international prestige of English common law, which forms the basis of the legal systems for some 27% of the world’s 320 jurisdictions. Meanwhile, the UK’s reputation as the leading centre for international dispute resolution is a strong driver for commercial parties to frequently opt for their contracts to be governed by English law.
• The UK’s international standing is reflected by the following indicators:
  – Five of the 20 largest law firms, based on number of lawyers in 2020/21, have their main base of operations in the UK.
  – Five of the top 20 revenue generating law firms are based in the UK.
  – All of the top 40 law firms by revenue have an office in London.
  – The largest international law firms in London have between 45% and 65% of their lawyers abroad, and many other
  London- based firms have between 10% and 20% of lawyers overseas.
  – Latest figures available indicate that there are more than 6,500 practising certificate holders from England and Wales who
  are working abroad.

Click on the map below to find out more about UK legal services across the UK's regions and nations: