Paralegal Salary Guide


A job as a paralegal can be a first step towards a lucrative career in law. We get many paralegals coming to us to find out what their salary should be, so we analysed salary data from all the paralegals in our database to create this guide to paralegal salaries in the UK. We looked at paralegal salaries by location in the UK (overall average salary: £25,000), by years of experience, by degree and by company size - so that you can be a best paying paralegal.


Location

CityAverage Paralegal Salary
Leeds£20,000
Birmingham£23,000
Manchester£26,000
London£29,000

No surprises here - paralegals in London are earning £9,000 more than their equivalents in Leeds, with Manchester and Birmingham falling in between. This partly reflects the higher cost of living in the capital, but also the highly competitive marketplace.


Experience

Years of ExperienceAverage Paralegal  Salary
0-2£22,000
3-5£25,000
6-10£28,000
10+£28,000

A paralegal's salary rises as they gain experience - but only up to a point. Beyond 6-10 years of experience, paralegals' salaries plateau around £28,000, and those gaining extra experience will not see any changes to their pay.


Degree

DegreeAverage Paralegal Salary
LLM£23,000
Bachelor's Degree£25,000
Master's Degree£26,000

Paralegals seem to earn salaries directly proportionate to the amount of time taken to get their most recent degree: graduates from a three-year bachelor's degree earn £2,000 more than those from a one-year LLM degree, while Master's graduates come out on top with a total salary of £26,000.


Company Size

Company Size Average Paralegal Salary
Large 250+£27,000
Medium 50-250£24,000
Small 10-50£21,000

Again, the results are unsurprising. The big law firms is where the money is, and paralegals can earn at least £3,000 more at these firms than at smaller companies. This disparity may appear even more pronounced than it is, since many of the largest firms are based in London, where paralegal salaries are already higher than average.

 

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