NQ Salaries Hit £150k in Latest Pay War Salvo
Norma Harris
The London salary wars continue with Macfarlanes bumping its newly qualified (NQ) base pay from £140,000 to £150,000.
Effective 1 July, the £10k increase officially aligns the firm with the UK Magic Circle’s current baseline, cementing its status among the top tier of native UK firms competing for top-flight talent.
By hitting the £150k mark, Macfarlanes has leapfrogged a pack of newly-merged transatlantic giants, sitting above Baker McKenzie and recently consolidated firms like Hogan Lovells Cadwalader and HSF Kramer, all of which currently pay their London NQs £145,000.
It also leaves behind the likes of Norton Rose Fulbright and Ashurst Perkins Coie, which remain at £140,000.
Beating the Magic Circle on Trainee Pay
While Macfarlanes is matching firms like A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Linklaters, and Slaughter and May on NQ compensation, it is quietly outflanking them at the junior trainee level.
As we reported last month, private equity titan Simpson Thacher have also announced a lucrative UK training contract with big money.
Effective 1 September, Macfarlanes’ trainees will receive a £4,000 boost. First-year trainee pay will jump from £56,000 to £60,000, with second-years moving from £61,000 to £65,000. For context, Magic Circle trainees currently earn £56,000 and £61,000, respectively.
Macfarlanes managing partner Luke Powell framed the raises as a necessary investment to safeguard the firm’s elite independence.
“We want to recruit highly talented and committed people to our firm and have them become exceptional lawyers with us over the long term,” Powell said. “Our salaries support that and reflect our strong position in the market.”
The US Elephant in the Room
While £150k firmly establishes Macfarlanes at the top of the domestic UK market, it still highlights the ever-widening gap between the City establishment and the deep-pocketed American firms with their pockets bulging.
As LawFuel recently noted in our coverage of the shifting global elite, the traditional Magic Circle is increasingly being replaced in prestige and pay by a “New Five” of US firms. The £150k benchmark pales in comparison to the lockstep-busting figures being handed out by American counterparts.
Firms like Davis Polk, Paul Weiss, and Gibson Dunn comfortably dish out £180,000 to their London juniors. Meanwhile, litigation heavyweight Quinn Emanuel currently sits at the very top of the Big Law Salary Scale, recently pushing its London NQ pay to a staggering £189,000 following Milbank’s initial stateside increases.
For Macfarlanes, however, this targeted raise to £150k proves it is determined to remain fiercely competitive for the UK’s best domestic talent, proving you don’t necessarily have to pay £189,000 to stay in the City’s premier league, provided your prestige and platform hold up.
