Logo for IPA, featuring the text 'in partnership with' above and 'raising performance through workforce engagement' below. The IPA logo includes a stylized 'ipa' in blue with magenta and blue dots forming a circular pattern.
Logo for IPA, featuring the text 'in partnership with' above and 'raising performance through workforce engagement' below. The IPA logo includes a stylized 'ipa' in blue with magenta and blue dots forming a circular pattern.
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Barristers’ Working Lives 2025

In autumn 2024 the Bar Council commissioned the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) to undertake the sixth working lives survey of the Bar. These surveys, first conducted in 2011 by IES, and supported by Employment Research Ltd, provide a wealth of data and insight into the profession. In 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic forced a delay to the survey, which was put back just over a year, to April 2021. As such the 2021 survey was something of an anomaly being conducted in unusual times: the impact of the pandemic led to a series of changes to working patterns, backlogs in cases and new modes of working.

In 2023 the survey was conducted at a point in time when a ‘new normal’ had been established, and as such provides a valuable insight into a changing profession. The survey this year examines how these new working patterns have bedded down after another two years. It also looks at changes over time across a multitude of working life characteristics.

The main objectives of the 2025 survey and report included:

  • Providing demographic and employment data and information on the profile of the Bar, including information on equality and diversity issues within the Bar for different areas of practice, Silk and sectors of the Bar (i.e. employed and self-employed, both within chambers and sole practitioners).
  • Income, earnings and finances, including details of pension contributions, income declared at Practicing Certificate renewal and standard hourly rates charged. The section also looks at earnings and workload in publicly funded practice and the volume of work that comes from crime prosecution and magistrates’ courts.
  • Following on from the evaluation of remote hearings in 2023 the report looks at how use of remote hearings has changed in the last two years in relation to physical attendance, whether or not problems have been addressed/minimised and views of how they might be used going forward. This section also includes analysis of barristers’ views of extended operating hours and the introduction digital projects in recent years.
  • Understanding the current wellbeing of barristers and their views on work-life balance, comparing responses with an identical series of questions in 2021.
  • Exploring current workload and working hours, distribution of work, levels of pro-bono work provided and views of how barristers would like to see their working lives change.
  • Investigating the degree of bullying and harassment and discrimination at the Bar, both experienced in person or online and witnessed, and views of the sources and how it has been dealt with by employers and the profession.
  • Presenting views of practice and career development and working practice, in relation to reviews, mentoring and appraisals as well data on involvement in public access and international work.
  • Examining the views of the Bar in relation to sustainability and Net Zero including strategies, policies and initiatives currently employed or seen as worthwhile in improving sustainability.
  • Collating views on professional ethics and the support and training received in addressing ethical issues that arise in the course of barristers’ practices.
  • Take up and use of Bar Council services and payment and views of the Bar Representation Fee are also addressed.

Where possible comparisons are made with data and findings from previous surveys of the Bar.

The survey in 2025 followed a slightly different approach to those adopted in the previous three iterations being mailed individually to all barristers but also, as in previous years, marketed through a wide variety of communication channels over a period of approximately four weeks. As a result, the survey was not anonymous this year, to allow the follow up of non-respondents and achieve a slightly better response rate.