Where to study

Tests

Driving testsCitizenship testsSchool and university admissionsNursing, medicine and healthEnglish and French testsTeachingMoney, law and insuranceTrades and work licencesPilots, drones, boats and radio

Countries

United StatesCanadaUnited KingdomAustraliaNew Zealand

United Kingdom · Professional exam

How hard is the SQE? Pass rates by sitting

Fewer than half of the candidates who sat SQE1 in July 2026 passed: 42% overall and 47% of first-time sitters, according to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). SQE2 pass rates are much higher, at 83% in April 2026. The pass rates are the clearest public measure of how hard the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) is, and they move with who sits each time, especially how many are resitting.

  • 42%Passed SQE1, July 2026
  • 83%Passed SQE2, April 2026
  • 66.1%SQE1 candidates who’d passed by January 2026
Where to study

Updated October 2026 · Written from official sources, listed at the bottom of this page

SQE1 pass rates

SittingAllFirst timeSat
July 202642%47%6,315
January 202653%58%7,863
July 202541%46%5,851
January 202556%60%6,782
July 202444%48%Not listed
January 202456%Not listedNot listed

“Sat” is the number of candidates who completed both FLK1 and FLK2. In July 2024 the SRA also gave separate rates: 55% for FLK1 and 50% for FLK2.

January sittings have had pass rates 10 to 15% higher than July in each of the last three years. The SRA links this to the mix of candidates, and July has more people resitting, who pass less often than first-timers.

SQE2 pass rates

SittingAllFirst timeSat
April 202683%85%2,966
January 202680%79%1,141
October 202578%79%1,342
July 202576%79%959
April 202582%84%2,753
January 202575%77%1,134

April 2026’s first-time rate of 85% is the highest the SRA has recorded for SQE2. By January 2026, 19,281 people had passed SQE1 and 10,718 had passed SQE2 since the SQE began, and 66.1% of everyone who had taken SQE1 had passed it at some point, against 84.5% for SQE2.

Why is the SQE hard for some candidates?

In Kaplan’s analysis, published in November 2025, previous education and past academic results had the biggest measured effect on SQE1 scores, at around 23% of the variation: the ranking of your university accounted for 11.9% and your degree class 10.6%. Gender, age, disability and family background each accounted for less than 1%, and ethnicity for 8%. Kaplan found 67% of the variation wasn’t explained by the data it holds, which the SRA says suggests other factors, such as how a candidate prepares, have more impact.

Who sits also moves the overall rate: more resitters, more lawyers qualified abroad, or more Legal Practice Course (LPC) graduates taking SQE2 without SQE1 have all pulled rates down in particular sittings. Candidates with reasonable adjustments for a neurodivergent condition scored slightly higher than the cohort as a whole.

LPC graduates and SQE2 →SQE results and the pass mark →

Pass rates by training provider

The SRA promised to publish pass rates by training provider, but hasn’t yet. In December 2025 it said it didn’t have confidence in the quality of the data, and that publishing it would risk misleading candidates. It plans to publish contextualised data instead.

Sources: SRA and 11 more. Checked October 2026.

Rules and fees can change, so check the official site before your test.

Explore

Everything else, in one place

OverviewCoursesBookingCostSQE1SQE2DatesResultsQualifying

About the assessments

SpecificationSample questionsPass rates

Routes and funding

Work experienceLPC or SQEApprenticeshipsLLM and funding