Law Careers
Is a law degree worth it financially? What the data actually says
A breakdown of the 2026 IFS earnings data for law graduates, covering lifetime returns, salary trajectories, and what this means for aspiring solicitors.
EO Careers Team
If you're exploring careers in law and weighing up your options, our Law Careers hub brings together guidance on routes into the profession, qualification pathways, and what life as a solicitor actually looks like.
The question of whether a law degree is financially worth it comes up constantly among aspiring solicitors. You hear conflicting things. Headlines say graduate returns are falling. Student loan debt is climbing. And yet law firms are still paying eye-watering salaries to newly qualified solicitors at the biggest firms. So what is actually true?
In June 2026, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published its most comprehensive study to date on the lifetime financial returns to undergraduate degrees in England. It tracked a cohort of students from their GCSEs through to age 37, using real HMRC tax data, and then simulated their earnings through to retirement. The findings for law are striking, and mostly underreported.
Why most coverage of this report misses the point for law students
The headline that dominated the press was this: graduate lifetime returns have fallen by around 30% compared with the IFS's previous estimates from 2020.
That sounds alarming. It is, in a limited sense, true. But the context matters, and the context is almost entirely absent from the coverage.
The fall is not evidence that degrees have become less valuable. It reflects two specific things: first, that real earnings between 2020 and 2026 were hit by COVID and then the cost-of-living crisis, which depressed actual earnings for the cohort being tracked. Second, that government policy changes, particularly frozen income tax thresholds and tighter student loan terms, have shifted more of the financial return away from individuals and toward the exchequer. The underlying graduate premium, measured as the earnings difference between graduates and comparable non-graduates at specific ages, has been stable across 11 successive GCSE cohorts. There is no evidence the value of a degree has declined.
For law specifically, the picture is even clearer.
What the IFS actually found for law graduates
Law sits in what the IFS calls the LEM group: Law, Economics and Management. This group is consistently treated as high-return throughout the report.
The headline number: the average net lifetime individual return for women who study law is close to £200,000. That figure is after taxes, after student loan repayments, and after accounting for the earnings the same person would have made if they had not gone to university at all. It places law alongside business and medical sciences as one of the highest-return subjects for women, well above the all-subject average of £90,000.
For men, law ranks among the upper tier of subjects as well. Male law graduates at age 37 were earning median gross annual earnings of between £60,000 and £70,000, placing law among the top eight subjects by median earnings. Economics and medicine sit above it, but law is clearly in the top tier by any measure.
The share of law graduates achieving a positive net lifetime return is also high. The IFS groups law within LEM for this analysis, and LEM subjects have one of the strongest positive-return rates of any subject group, for both men and women.
The earnings trajectory matters as much as the average
One thing the IFS report makes clear is that graduate earnings are not static. The gap between law graduates and comparable non-graduates does not appear immediately. In fact, many graduates earn less than non-graduates in their early 20s, simply because they are in university while non-graduates are already working.
The inflection point comes in the late 20s. After that, law graduates (alongside other LEM subjects) see faster earnings growth than most other graduates. By age 37, the median law graduate is earning substantially more than the median graduate across all subjects, and the gap between them and comparable non-graduates is wide and widening.
This matters for how you think about the financial case for law. If you compare earnings at 22, law looks neutral. Compare at 35, and it looks excellent. The IFS simulates earnings all the way to 67, and the compounding effect of higher earnings in your 30s, 40s, and 50s is significant.
The prior attainment finding that nobody talks about
One of the most policy-relevant sections of the report looks at returns for students with lower prior attainment, defined roughly as the bottom 35% of the sample by GCSE scores. These are students who achieved the equivalent of around five Cs but not significantly higher.
Even for this group, law remains in the upper tier of subjects for both men and women. The report explicitly names economics, business, computing, and law as among the highest-return subjects for men with low prior attainment. Nursing tops the list for women in this group, but law is still well above average.
Aspiring solicitors do not all come from grammar schools or private schools with straight-A trajectories. If you have a non-linear path, the data does not suggest law is a poor financial choice. The returns are lower for lower-attaining students, but they are still positive and, for law, still strong relative to other subjects.
The IFS does note that around 40% of men with low prior attainment see a negative financial return from university broadly. Law students in that group are not immune from this risk. But choosing a higher-return subject like law significantly improves the odds.
What the variance means
Averages can be misleading here, and the IFS is honest about this.
The mean return for law graduates is pulled up by a relatively small number of people earning very high salaries. At the top end, the distribution is wide. If you qualify at a Magic Circle firm and make partner, your lifetime earnings will be substantially higher than the average law graduate. If you qualify at a regional high street firm and stay there, they will be lower.
The IFS found this pattern most clearly for economics graduates, where the top 10% of men were earning over £263,000 gross annually by age 37, against a median of £90,000. Law's distribution is narrower than economics, but the same principle applies. The regulated career structure of law, with relatively predictable salary bands at each qualification stage, means there is more clustering in the middle than you see in economics or finance. That is actually a feature, not a bug, for most people: it means the floor is higher and the average is more representative of what you are likely to earn.
How the student loan system affects the real return
The IFS applied the current Plan 5 student loan terms to its calculations. Under Plan 5:
Repayments are 9% of earnings above £25,000
The repayment period is 40 years
Interest is charged at RPI
For most law graduates, who will earn above average salaries, this means repaying a meaningful share of their loan. But the IFS finds that even after full repayment calculations, net individual returns remain strongly positive for law graduates. The reason is simple: the additional earnings generated by a law degree, over a full career, far exceed the cost of the loan.
The IFS estimates average total loan borrowing of around £52,000 for a three-year degree. For a law graduate earning in the upper half of the law graduate distribution, the present-value cost of that loan is comfortably absorbed by the additional lifetime earnings.
One important caveat: frozen tax thresholds since 2019 mean that a larger share of graduate earnings now goes to the exchequer rather than to the individual. The IFS estimates policy changes since 2019 have reduced average individual returns by around £15,000 overall. Law graduates are not immune from this. But it does not change the fundamental picture.
The stability of law as a high-return subject across cohorts
The IFS looked at gross earnings returns at age 28 for ten consecutive GCSE cohorts. The finding is clear: the ranking of subjects has been stable across cohorts. Subjects that were relatively high-return for the 2002 GCSE cohort at age 28 were broadly the same subjects that were high-return for the 2011 GCSE cohort at the same age.
Law is consistently in the upper tier across all of those cohorts.
There are exceptions to the stability pattern. Medicine and education saw earnings returns decline in later cohorts, likely reflecting slow public sector pay growth and junior doctor strikes. Law has not seen a comparable decline. It tracks private sector labour markets, where pay has remained more competitive.
Growing demand is also working in your favour
The report documents changes in who is studying what. Law's share of female university entrants grew from 5.7% in 2006 to 7.3% in 2022. For men it moved from 4.0% to 4.3%. Law is being chosen by more students, and that is happening against a backdrop of strong returns.
The report also reweighted its estimates to reflect today's student population. When you account for the current mix of subjects and institutions being studied, the projected lifetime returns are, if anything, slightly higher than the historical baseline, not lower. The shift toward higher-return subjects, including law, has offset the compositional change toward lower-attaining students.
The honest version of "is it worth it?"
Yes, on average, for most people. But the answer is more nuanced than that.
A law degree studied at a strong institution, completed to a good standard, and followed by qualifying into a well-paid role will deliver a positive financial return in the vast majority of cases. The IFS data is clear on this.
The risk cases are:
Studying law at a less selective institution and not making it through to qualification as a solicitor or barrister. The IFS finds that institution type matters more for men than women in terms of returns, but it matters for both.
Lower prior attainment combined with lower-return outcomes. The floor is still positive for most, but the distribution is wider and the risk of a negative return is higher.
Not completing the degree. The IFS includes non-completers in its HE group and notes this pulls averages down.
None of these risks are unique to law. Relative to other subjects, law remains one of the strongest financial cases you can make for a degree. The IFS data bears that out.
If you are reading this as an aspiring solicitor trying to decide whether pursuing law is worth the cost and effort, the financial answer is almost certainly yes. The harder questions are whether you will secure a training contract, at what kind of firm, and in what practice area. Those questions determine where you land in the law graduate distribution, and that is where the real variance in outcome lies.
Our guides on how to get a training contract and how to get a vacation scheme exist precisely to help you with those questions.
The graduate premium has not declined. But application standards have risen.
This is the thing the IFS report does not cover, because it is about labour market outcomes rather than the application process. But it is worth saying explicitly.
The financial return on law is holding up. The competition for the roles that sit at the top of that distribution is not. Training contract applications at top commercial firms have become significantly more competitive over the past decade. The number of graduates chasing a limited number of seats at Magic Circle and Silver Circle firms has increased substantially as law has grown in popularity.
That is not a reason to avoid law. It is a reason to start preparing earlier, to understand the process more deeply, and to build the kind of application that actually converts. The IFS data confirms that the destination is worth reaching. The work is in getting there.
Want to understand exactly what firms are looking for in applications?
Our Interview Question Bank brings together the most common questions asked across law firm applications and interviews, with guidance on how to approach each one. It's used by thousands of aspiring solicitors preparing for training contract and vacation scheme applications.
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Law Careers
Is a law degree worth it financially? What the data actually says
A breakdown of the 2026 IFS earnings data for law graduates, covering lifetime returns, salary trajectories, and what this means for aspiring solicitors.
EO Careers Team
If you're exploring careers in law and weighing up your options, our Law Careers hub brings together guidance on routes into the profession, qualification pathways, and what life as a solicitor actually looks like.
The question of whether a law degree is financially worth it comes up constantly among aspiring solicitors. You hear conflicting things. Headlines say graduate returns are falling. Student loan debt is climbing. And yet law firms are still paying eye-watering salaries to newly qualified solicitors at the biggest firms. So what is actually true?
In June 2026, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published its most comprehensive study to date on the lifetime financial returns to undergraduate degrees in England. It tracked a cohort of students from their GCSEs through to age 37, using real HMRC tax data, and then simulated their earnings through to retirement. The findings for law are striking, and mostly underreported.
Why most coverage of this report misses the point for law students
The headline that dominated the press was this: graduate lifetime returns have fallen by around 30% compared with the IFS's previous estimates from 2020.
That sounds alarming. It is, in a limited sense, true. But the context matters, and the context is almost entirely absent from the coverage.
The fall is not evidence that degrees have become less valuable. It reflects two specific things: first, that real earnings between 2020 and 2026 were hit by COVID and then the cost-of-living crisis, which depressed actual earnings for the cohort being tracked. Second, that government policy changes, particularly frozen income tax thresholds and tighter student loan terms, have shifted more of the financial return away from individuals and toward the exchequer. The underlying graduate premium, measured as the earnings difference between graduates and comparable non-graduates at specific ages, has been stable across 11 successive GCSE cohorts. There is no evidence the value of a degree has declined.
For law specifically, the picture is even clearer.
What the IFS actually found for law graduates
Law sits in what the IFS calls the LEM group: Law, Economics and Management. This group is consistently treated as high-return throughout the report.
The headline number: the average net lifetime individual return for women who study law is close to £200,000. That figure is after taxes, after student loan repayments, and after accounting for the earnings the same person would have made if they had not gone to university at all. It places law alongside business and medical sciences as one of the highest-return subjects for women, well above the all-subject average of £90,000.
For men, law ranks among the upper tier of subjects as well. Male law graduates at age 37 were earning median gross annual earnings of between £60,000 and £70,000, placing law among the top eight subjects by median earnings. Economics and medicine sit above it, but law is clearly in the top tier by any measure.
The share of law graduates achieving a positive net lifetime return is also high. The IFS groups law within LEM for this analysis, and LEM subjects have one of the strongest positive-return rates of any subject group, for both men and women.
The earnings trajectory matters as much as the average
One thing the IFS report makes clear is that graduate earnings are not static. The gap between law graduates and comparable non-graduates does not appear immediately. In fact, many graduates earn less than non-graduates in their early 20s, simply because they are in university while non-graduates are already working.
The inflection point comes in the late 20s. After that, law graduates (alongside other LEM subjects) see faster earnings growth than most other graduates. By age 37, the median law graduate is earning substantially more than the median graduate across all subjects, and the gap between them and comparable non-graduates is wide and widening.
This matters for how you think about the financial case for law. If you compare earnings at 22, law looks neutral. Compare at 35, and it looks excellent. The IFS simulates earnings all the way to 67, and the compounding effect of higher earnings in your 30s, 40s, and 50s is significant.
The prior attainment finding that nobody talks about
One of the most policy-relevant sections of the report looks at returns for students with lower prior attainment, defined roughly as the bottom 35% of the sample by GCSE scores. These are students who achieved the equivalent of around five Cs but not significantly higher.
Even for this group, law remains in the upper tier of subjects for both men and women. The report explicitly names economics, business, computing, and law as among the highest-return subjects for men with low prior attainment. Nursing tops the list for women in this group, but law is still well above average.
Aspiring solicitors do not all come from grammar schools or private schools with straight-A trajectories. If you have a non-linear path, the data does not suggest law is a poor financial choice. The returns are lower for lower-attaining students, but they are still positive and, for law, still strong relative to other subjects.
The IFS does note that around 40% of men with low prior attainment see a negative financial return from university broadly. Law students in that group are not immune from this risk. But choosing a higher-return subject like law significantly improves the odds.
What the variance means
Averages can be misleading here, and the IFS is honest about this.
The mean return for law graduates is pulled up by a relatively small number of people earning very high salaries. At the top end, the distribution is wide. If you qualify at a Magic Circle firm and make partner, your lifetime earnings will be substantially higher than the average law graduate. If you qualify at a regional high street firm and stay there, they will be lower.
The IFS found this pattern most clearly for economics graduates, where the top 10% of men were earning over £263,000 gross annually by age 37, against a median of £90,000. Law's distribution is narrower than economics, but the same principle applies. The regulated career structure of law, with relatively predictable salary bands at each qualification stage, means there is more clustering in the middle than you see in economics or finance. That is actually a feature, not a bug, for most people: it means the floor is higher and the average is more representative of what you are likely to earn.
How the student loan system affects the real return
The IFS applied the current Plan 5 student loan terms to its calculations. Under Plan 5:
Repayments are 9% of earnings above £25,000
The repayment period is 40 years
Interest is charged at RPI
For most law graduates, who will earn above average salaries, this means repaying a meaningful share of their loan. But the IFS finds that even after full repayment calculations, net individual returns remain strongly positive for law graduates. The reason is simple: the additional earnings generated by a law degree, over a full career, far exceed the cost of the loan.
The IFS estimates average total loan borrowing of around £52,000 for a three-year degree. For a law graduate earning in the upper half of the law graduate distribution, the present-value cost of that loan is comfortably absorbed by the additional lifetime earnings.
One important caveat: frozen tax thresholds since 2019 mean that a larger share of graduate earnings now goes to the exchequer rather than to the individual. The IFS estimates policy changes since 2019 have reduced average individual returns by around £15,000 overall. Law graduates are not immune from this. But it does not change the fundamental picture.
The stability of law as a high-return subject across cohorts
The IFS looked at gross earnings returns at age 28 for ten consecutive GCSE cohorts. The finding is clear: the ranking of subjects has been stable across cohorts. Subjects that were relatively high-return for the 2002 GCSE cohort at age 28 were broadly the same subjects that were high-return for the 2011 GCSE cohort at the same age.
Law is consistently in the upper tier across all of those cohorts.
There are exceptions to the stability pattern. Medicine and education saw earnings returns decline in later cohorts, likely reflecting slow public sector pay growth and junior doctor strikes. Law has not seen a comparable decline. It tracks private sector labour markets, where pay has remained more competitive.
Growing demand is also working in your favour
The report documents changes in who is studying what. Law's share of female university entrants grew from 5.7% in 2006 to 7.3% in 2022. For men it moved from 4.0% to 4.3%. Law is being chosen by more students, and that is happening against a backdrop of strong returns.
The report also reweighted its estimates to reflect today's student population. When you account for the current mix of subjects and institutions being studied, the projected lifetime returns are, if anything, slightly higher than the historical baseline, not lower. The shift toward higher-return subjects, including law, has offset the compositional change toward lower-attaining students.
The honest version of "is it worth it?"
Yes, on average, for most people. But the answer is more nuanced than that.
A law degree studied at a strong institution, completed to a good standard, and followed by qualifying into a well-paid role will deliver a positive financial return in the vast majority of cases. The IFS data is clear on this.
The risk cases are:
Studying law at a less selective institution and not making it through to qualification as a solicitor or barrister. The IFS finds that institution type matters more for men than women in terms of returns, but it matters for both.
Lower prior attainment combined with lower-return outcomes. The floor is still positive for most, but the distribution is wider and the risk of a negative return is higher.
Not completing the degree. The IFS includes non-completers in its HE group and notes this pulls averages down.
None of these risks are unique to law. Relative to other subjects, law remains one of the strongest financial cases you can make for a degree. The IFS data bears that out.
If you are reading this as an aspiring solicitor trying to decide whether pursuing law is worth the cost and effort, the financial answer is almost certainly yes. The harder questions are whether you will secure a training contract, at what kind of firm, and in what practice area. Those questions determine where you land in the law graduate distribution, and that is where the real variance in outcome lies.
Our guides on how to get a training contract and how to get a vacation scheme exist precisely to help you with those questions.
The graduate premium has not declined. But application standards have risen.
This is the thing the IFS report does not cover, because it is about labour market outcomes rather than the application process. But it is worth saying explicitly.
The financial return on law is holding up. The competition for the roles that sit at the top of that distribution is not. Training contract applications at top commercial firms have become significantly more competitive over the past decade. The number of graduates chasing a limited number of seats at Magic Circle and Silver Circle firms has increased substantially as law has grown in popularity.
That is not a reason to avoid law. It is a reason to start preparing earlier, to understand the process more deeply, and to build the kind of application that actually converts. The IFS data confirms that the destination is worth reaching. The work is in getting there.
Want to understand exactly what firms are looking for in applications?
Our Interview Question Bank brings together the most common questions asked across law firm applications and interviews, with guidance on how to approach each one. It's used by thousands of aspiring solicitors preparing for training contract and vacation scheme applications.
Law Careers
Is a law degree worth it financially? What the data actually says
A breakdown of the 2026 IFS earnings data for law graduates, covering lifetime returns, salary trajectories, and what this means for aspiring solicitors.
EO Careers Team
If you're exploring careers in law and weighing up your options, our Law Careers hub brings together guidance on routes into the profession, qualification pathways, and what life as a solicitor actually looks like.
The question of whether a law degree is financially worth it comes up constantly among aspiring solicitors. You hear conflicting things. Headlines say graduate returns are falling. Student loan debt is climbing. And yet law firms are still paying eye-watering salaries to newly qualified solicitors at the biggest firms. So what is actually true?
In June 2026, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published its most comprehensive study to date on the lifetime financial returns to undergraduate degrees in England. It tracked a cohort of students from their GCSEs through to age 37, using real HMRC tax data, and then simulated their earnings through to retirement. The findings for law are striking, and mostly underreported.
Why most coverage of this report misses the point for law students
The headline that dominated the press was this: graduate lifetime returns have fallen by around 30% compared with the IFS's previous estimates from 2020.
That sounds alarming. It is, in a limited sense, true. But the context matters, and the context is almost entirely absent from the coverage.
The fall is not evidence that degrees have become less valuable. It reflects two specific things: first, that real earnings between 2020 and 2026 were hit by COVID and then the cost-of-living crisis, which depressed actual earnings for the cohort being tracked. Second, that government policy changes, particularly frozen income tax thresholds and tighter student loan terms, have shifted more of the financial return away from individuals and toward the exchequer. The underlying graduate premium, measured as the earnings difference between graduates and comparable non-graduates at specific ages, has been stable across 11 successive GCSE cohorts. There is no evidence the value of a degree has declined.
For law specifically, the picture is even clearer.
What the IFS actually found for law graduates
Law sits in what the IFS calls the LEM group: Law, Economics and Management. This group is consistently treated as high-return throughout the report.
The headline number: the average net lifetime individual return for women who study law is close to £200,000. That figure is after taxes, after student loan repayments, and after accounting for the earnings the same person would have made if they had not gone to university at all. It places law alongside business and medical sciences as one of the highest-return subjects for women, well above the all-subject average of £90,000.
For men, law ranks among the upper tier of subjects as well. Male law graduates at age 37 were earning median gross annual earnings of between £60,000 and £70,000, placing law among the top eight subjects by median earnings. Economics and medicine sit above it, but law is clearly in the top tier by any measure.
The share of law graduates achieving a positive net lifetime return is also high. The IFS groups law within LEM for this analysis, and LEM subjects have one of the strongest positive-return rates of any subject group, for both men and women.
The earnings trajectory matters as much as the average
One thing the IFS report makes clear is that graduate earnings are not static. The gap between law graduates and comparable non-graduates does not appear immediately. In fact, many graduates earn less than non-graduates in their early 20s, simply because they are in university while non-graduates are already working.
The inflection point comes in the late 20s. After that, law graduates (alongside other LEM subjects) see faster earnings growth than most other graduates. By age 37, the median law graduate is earning substantially more than the median graduate across all subjects, and the gap between them and comparable non-graduates is wide and widening.
This matters for how you think about the financial case for law. If you compare earnings at 22, law looks neutral. Compare at 35, and it looks excellent. The IFS simulates earnings all the way to 67, and the compounding effect of higher earnings in your 30s, 40s, and 50s is significant.
The prior attainment finding that nobody talks about
One of the most policy-relevant sections of the report looks at returns for students with lower prior attainment, defined roughly as the bottom 35% of the sample by GCSE scores. These are students who achieved the equivalent of around five Cs but not significantly higher.
Even for this group, law remains in the upper tier of subjects for both men and women. The report explicitly names economics, business, computing, and law as among the highest-return subjects for men with low prior attainment. Nursing tops the list for women in this group, but law is still well above average.
Aspiring solicitors do not all come from grammar schools or private schools with straight-A trajectories. If you have a non-linear path, the data does not suggest law is a poor financial choice. The returns are lower for lower-attaining students, but they are still positive and, for law, still strong relative to other subjects.
The IFS does note that around 40% of men with low prior attainment see a negative financial return from university broadly. Law students in that group are not immune from this risk. But choosing a higher-return subject like law significantly improves the odds.
What the variance means
Averages can be misleading here, and the IFS is honest about this.
The mean return for law graduates is pulled up by a relatively small number of people earning very high salaries. At the top end, the distribution is wide. If you qualify at a Magic Circle firm and make partner, your lifetime earnings will be substantially higher than the average law graduate. If you qualify at a regional high street firm and stay there, they will be lower.
The IFS found this pattern most clearly for economics graduates, where the top 10% of men were earning over £263,000 gross annually by age 37, against a median of £90,000. Law's distribution is narrower than economics, but the same principle applies. The regulated career structure of law, with relatively predictable salary bands at each qualification stage, means there is more clustering in the middle than you see in economics or finance. That is actually a feature, not a bug, for most people: it means the floor is higher and the average is more representative of what you are likely to earn.
How the student loan system affects the real return
The IFS applied the current Plan 5 student loan terms to its calculations. Under Plan 5:
Repayments are 9% of earnings above £25,000
The repayment period is 40 years
Interest is charged at RPI
For most law graduates, who will earn above average salaries, this means repaying a meaningful share of their loan. But the IFS finds that even after full repayment calculations, net individual returns remain strongly positive for law graduates. The reason is simple: the additional earnings generated by a law degree, over a full career, far exceed the cost of the loan.
The IFS estimates average total loan borrowing of around £52,000 for a three-year degree. For a law graduate earning in the upper half of the law graduate distribution, the present-value cost of that loan is comfortably absorbed by the additional lifetime earnings.
One important caveat: frozen tax thresholds since 2019 mean that a larger share of graduate earnings now goes to the exchequer rather than to the individual. The IFS estimates policy changes since 2019 have reduced average individual returns by around £15,000 overall. Law graduates are not immune from this. But it does not change the fundamental picture.
The stability of law as a high-return subject across cohorts
The IFS looked at gross earnings returns at age 28 for ten consecutive GCSE cohorts. The finding is clear: the ranking of subjects has been stable across cohorts. Subjects that were relatively high-return for the 2002 GCSE cohort at age 28 were broadly the same subjects that were high-return for the 2011 GCSE cohort at the same age.
Law is consistently in the upper tier across all of those cohorts.
There are exceptions to the stability pattern. Medicine and education saw earnings returns decline in later cohorts, likely reflecting slow public sector pay growth and junior doctor strikes. Law has not seen a comparable decline. It tracks private sector labour markets, where pay has remained more competitive.
Growing demand is also working in your favour
The report documents changes in who is studying what. Law's share of female university entrants grew from 5.7% in 2006 to 7.3% in 2022. For men it moved from 4.0% to 4.3%. Law is being chosen by more students, and that is happening against a backdrop of strong returns.
The report also reweighted its estimates to reflect today's student population. When you account for the current mix of subjects and institutions being studied, the projected lifetime returns are, if anything, slightly higher than the historical baseline, not lower. The shift toward higher-return subjects, including law, has offset the compositional change toward lower-attaining students.
The honest version of "is it worth it?"
Yes, on average, for most people. But the answer is more nuanced than that.
A law degree studied at a strong institution, completed to a good standard, and followed by qualifying into a well-paid role will deliver a positive financial return in the vast majority of cases. The IFS data is clear on this.
The risk cases are:
Studying law at a less selective institution and not making it through to qualification as a solicitor or barrister. The IFS finds that institution type matters more for men than women in terms of returns, but it matters for both.
Lower prior attainment combined with lower-return outcomes. The floor is still positive for most, but the distribution is wider and the risk of a negative return is higher.
Not completing the degree. The IFS includes non-completers in its HE group and notes this pulls averages down.
None of these risks are unique to law. Relative to other subjects, law remains one of the strongest financial cases you can make for a degree. The IFS data bears that out.
If you are reading this as an aspiring solicitor trying to decide whether pursuing law is worth the cost and effort, the financial answer is almost certainly yes. The harder questions are whether you will secure a training contract, at what kind of firm, and in what practice area. Those questions determine where you land in the law graduate distribution, and that is where the real variance in outcome lies.
Our guides on how to get a training contract and how to get a vacation scheme exist precisely to help you with those questions.
The graduate premium has not declined. But application standards have risen.
This is the thing the IFS report does not cover, because it is about labour market outcomes rather than the application process. But it is worth saying explicitly.
The financial return on law is holding up. The competition for the roles that sit at the top of that distribution is not. Training contract applications at top commercial firms have become significantly more competitive over the past decade. The number of graduates chasing a limited number of seats at Magic Circle and Silver Circle firms has increased substantially as law has grown in popularity.
That is not a reason to avoid law. It is a reason to start preparing earlier, to understand the process more deeply, and to build the kind of application that actually converts. The IFS data confirms that the destination is worth reaching. The work is in getting there.
Want to understand exactly what firms are looking for in applications?
Our Interview Question Bank brings together the most common questions asked across law firm applications and interviews, with guidance on how to approach each one. It's used by thousands of aspiring solicitors preparing for training contract and vacation scheme applications.