Research to inform workforce planning and career development in legal services
The report presents findings from a research study to undertake workforce modelling for the legal services sector over the next ten years, and interviews with legal services employers to explore their workforce and skills issues and approaches to workforce planning.
The report analyses the size and shape of the legal sector workforce using latest available data, and models changes to the occupational structure in legal services due to increased demand and productivity.
The research delivers an illustrative and high-level picture of how the sector workforce is due to change given current trends and based on several alternative scenarios covering technology adoption, Brexit and competition.
These scenarios were informed by interviews with leaders in solicitor firms and in-house teams, who also described how they manage changes to staffing given disruption in their business environment.
The research is intended to give organisations in which solicitors work an understanding of wider market drivers and trends alongside the composition of their current workforce. This should enable the organisations in which Law Society members work to better plan for the long term and make any necessary adjustments in the short term.