London Tax Partner Hiring Moved With the City, Not the Practice

Sartori & Partners data show that london tax partner lateral hiring stood still while tax partner hiring across the practice grew fast. Tax partner moves into London held flat (-7.7%) on settled 12-month windows, 26 and then 24. Across the practice, tax partner moves rose 27.7%, from 213 to 272. London's tax market as a whole held flat (+0.0%) too, with 66 moves in the latest window. For a firm planning a London tax partner hire, the extra supply that partner growth brought to tax elsewhere has not reached London.

The practice added 59 tax partner moves between the two settled windows. London counted 2 fewer, a gap that two counts this small cannot separate from chance, so the reading is flat rather than a decline. Because the practice grew around it, London's slice of the practice's partner moves went from 12.2% to 8.8%.

The calendar years show how the practice got there. Tax partner moves across all cities went from 181 in 2023 to 223 in 2025, and 2026 had already reached 241 by October. None of that acceleration shows in the London count.

For a London tax practice head, the consequence is simple. Firms adding tax partners in other cities found more lawyers in motion than a year earlier. In London the number of tax partners changing firms is where it was, so every search competes for the same small group of moves.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, partner moves into London across all practices held flat (+1.3%), from 384 to 389. Tax partners made up 6.8% of London partner moves in the earlier window and 6.2% in the latest one. Tax in London kept close to its place in a city whose partner market did not grow. The practice's momentum came from somewhere other than London.

London's calendar years add one detail. Tax partner arrivals reached 31 in 2025, after 20 in 2024; earlier years are too small to publish. Across all levels the yearly London tax count has no clear direction: 63 moves in 2022, 56 in 2023, 74 in 2024 and 68 in 2025. The settled window ending September 2026 counted 24, and the 2026 partner count to October is too small to publish. The 2025 high did not turn into a new level.

A London tax partner search is therefore paced by the city, not by the practice. The faster hiring seen in tax elsewhere does not shorten a London timeline or widen a London shortlist.

The flat reading is not only a partner story. All tax lateral moves into London held flat (+0.0%), 66 in the earlier window and 66 in the latest. Tax moves across the practice rose 23.8% over the same windows, from 592 to 733. All lateral moves into London, every practice included, held flat (-2.5%).

London remains the second-largest city for tax moves, with 8.7% of the practice's lateral moves over 12 months and an index of 94 against the market's London share. Over three years London held 10.4% of tax moves, so its recent share sits below its longer run. The market is large and steady, not growing: a lateral plan for London tax should not count on rising supply.

Over three years, corporate and M&A tax was the own focus of 38.2% of tax lawyers who moved into London, 78 of 204 moves. Tax controversy came next at 12.3%. The transactional stream is 3.1 times the size of the controversy stream.

The tilt matches the city's deal work. Across all practices, London lateral moves over-index on private equity, at an index of 144, and on corporate and M&A, at 113, both above the market's own share. Tax advisers follow transactions, and London's transactions draw the tax lawyers who move.

For a firm whose London need is transactional tax, this is the larger pool even in a flat year. A controversy hire draws on a much thinner stream, and a search there should start earlier and look harder at lawyers who are not yet partners.

Across the practice, the ten firms that hired the most tax partners over 12 months took 20.3% of tax partner hires; the list below names all ten. The rest of the growth was spread wide, with 291 firms hiring at least one tax lawyer in the same months. Charles Russell Speechlys heads the practice's partner list and also ranks among the ten largest London tax hirers over three years.

The London list covers all levels over three years, ranked by individual hires, with ten firms named. Several names sit on both lists: these are the firms a London tax search competes with for the same partners, whether they are adding in London or in other cities.

First, size the market as it is. Sartori & Partners counted 24 tax partner moves into London in the latest settled 12-month window, flat against the year before. Budget a London tax partner search for a small, steady pool, not for the growth the practice shows in other cities.

Second, match the brief to the supply. Transactional tax is where most London movers sit; a controversy partner is a narrower search and needs a longer runway. Third, expect competition from firms building tax benches in several cities at once, since several names on the practice's partner list also rank among London's largest tax hirers. Fourth, weigh the build route honestly: London tax lawyers promoted over five years took a median of 11.0 years from first year of practice to partner, so a lateral hire remains the faster way to add a partner, and the shortlist will not get longer by waiting.