Salary · London independent
Travers Smith Salary 2026: Associate Scale, Bonus and Partner Pay
On 29 July 2025 Travers Smith published a London newly qualified base of £130,000 from 1 July 2025. The first qualifying class that sat on that rate was 21 of 23 people. How many City in-house seats companies staff from the firm is not a public number.
How many people the Travers Smith nq salary actually covers.
The Travers Smith nq salary printed for 2026 is a London newly qualified base of £130,000, and the first class that sat on it numbered 21 of 23. Across 750 structured interviews with London lawyers, general counsel told us they still bid first in-house solicitor seats off that cell. How many of those NQs companies then hire onto their own payroll is not a figure anyone publishes.
The Lawyer logged Travers Smith as retaining 21 of 23 qualifiers in autumn 2025 — the first full qualifying class after the 1 July 2025 rate. Practice split was not published. A low-twenties class, not a lockstep.
Published qualifying classUnpublished in-house stock
The dated scale, bonus ceiling and partner average sit in the next blocks. Coverage is the opening question, because a general counsel matching this firm is not hiring the whole partnership. Jump to the public cells.
- £130,000
- London newly qualified base from 1 July 2025, the only associate salary the firm prints for 2026.
- Legal Cheek, 29 July 2025; Travers Smith careers page, accessed 11 September 2026
- £20,000
- Stated additional-bonus potential in the financial year — a ceiling, not a paid average.
- Legal Cheek, 29 July 2025; RollOnFriday, 1 August 2025
- £1.4 million
- Average profit per equity partner for the year ended 30 June 2026, not a salary paid to every partner.
- Legal Cheek, 23 July 2026
Those three cells are the 2026 table that is actually public: one NQ base, one bonus ceiling, one partner average. Everything between NQ and equity PEP is unpublished. A general counsel who needs a 3-PQE is matching a spine they cannot see.
The 2026 rate is a qualifying class, not a City in-house census.
The people who earn the printed NQ cell sit on a London independent's payroll. The companies that later match it sit on PE houses, portfolio companies, listed mid-caps and asset managers — and nobody publishes how many of those seats were filled from this firm.
Travers Smith LLP is a UK independent City firm, authorized and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under registration 489478, with a London headquarters and a Brussels branch. Paris closed in the year ended 30 June 2025. It is not Magic Circle and not a US lockstep office. The 2026 NQ, associate and partner figures on this page are earned on that LLP, on a title ladder the firm itself publishes: Trainee Solicitor and Solicitor Apprentice, Newly Qualified Associate, Associate and Senior Associate, Senior Counsel (a firm title, not partner), then Partner as an LLP member.
The published cell covers a qualifying class in the low twenties, not a City in-house census. The Lawyer recorded 21 of 23 autumn-2025 qualifiers retained on 4 November 2025. Spring has historically been smaller: Legal Cheek recorded 6 of 8 March-2023 qualifiers accepting London NQ offers on 27 January 2023. Autumn 2022 retained 18 of 20. Band the people who have sat on the printed NQ cell: about eight in a spring round, the low twenties in autumn. Do not turn those earlier classes into a 2026 headcount. The 2026 autumn figure is not public.
The pipeline behind that class is a cap, not a 2026 census. A firm release on 21 July 2022 raised future trainee intake to a maximum of 40 a year. Legal Cheek's 2026–27 firm card still prints 35 training contracts, while the narrative on the same page says intake now sits at around 40. Those two publisher cells disagree; they are not averaged here. The solicitor apprenticeship officially launched in September 2025. Vacation-scheme pay is £750 per week on the careers page accessed 11 September 2026. Seat structure from the 2022 intake announcement still names at least six months in a corporate team and six months in a contentious seat, with remaining seats usually finance, funds, commercial, competition, real estate or regulatory. The Paris seat on that 2022 page is stale.
Inside that same London interview cohort, 88 of 112 general counsel and heads of legal at PE-backed operating companies and listed mid-caps, over a 24-month window, said they price a first in-house solicitor seat off the published City-independent NQ cell rather than off a lockstep they cannot read. That is the buyer's question this page is built on. The Law Society's Annual Statistics Report 2023, published 23 January 2025, counted 35,738 in-house solicitors in England and Wales as of July 2023 — 22 percent of practicing-certificate holders. TheCityUK, on 9 December 2025, put the in-house share at 25 percent of the profession. Neither source counts Travers alumni. A chief legal officer matching the 2026 NQ figure is buying a City independent NQ against that in-house stock, not paying the LLP.
Client secondment is the documented bridge, and it is thin at trainee level. Legal Cheek's 2026–27 survey prints a 5 percent chance of a client secondment and 0 percent abroad. The firm's Employment practice describes regular secondments and clients who treat the team as an extension of their HR function — that is associate-level, employer-side work, not a trainee machine. The Early Careers pages describe a network of over 150 independent law firms worldwide rather than a secondment factory. If a head of legal is waiting for this independent to second a qualifier onto the company payroll, the public cells do not support that plan.
Published NQ cellCompany payroll
- Qualifying class The printed NQ rate attaches to an autumn round in the low twenties and a historically smaller spring round. The 2026 autumn print is not up yet.
- Unpublished spine Associate and Senior Counsel pounds between NQ and equity PEP are not on any public table. A company matching those seats is bidding blind on cash.
- In-house destination PE-house counsel, portfolio general counsel, listed-plc Head of Legal, funds counsel. The headcount of Travers-trained lawyers in those seats is not published.
The published cell covers a qualifying class in the low twenties, not a City in-house census.
The Travers Smith salary cells that are actually public.
Open the dated table first. Trainee, NQ and a bonus ceiling are printed. The associate lockstep is not. Partner pay that is public is an average residual, not a salary point.
Legal Cheek reported on 29 July 2025 that Travers Smith lifted newly qualified solicitor base from £120,000 to £130,000, with NQs having the potential to earn up to £20,000 as an additional bonus during the financial year, and trainee year-one / year-two bases moving to £55,000 and £60,000 from that month. The Law Gazette printed the same NQ, bonus and year-two cells the same day. RollOnFriday, on 1 August 2025, recorded the effective date as 1 July 2025 and a spokeswoman stating the £20,000 potential; when asked what hours were needed for the maximum, the firm could not share further information. The employer's own careers page, accessed 11 September 2026, still prints year-one £55,000, year-two £60,000, and NQ £130,000 basic plus a discretionary bonus.
| Pay round | NQ base | Bonus cell | Trainee Y1 | Trainee Y2 | What else is public |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | £90,000 | £100,000–£117,000 total stated | £47,000 | £52,500 | 16 of 19 autumn retained — Legal Cheek, 19 July 2021 |
| 2024 | £120,000 | Up to £20,000 potential | £54,000 | £59,000 | Effective 1 July 2024 — Legal Cheek, 16 July 2024 |
| 2025 | £130,000 | Up to £20,000 potential | £55,000 | £60,000 | Effective 1 July 2025 — Legal Cheek, 29 July 2025; firm careers page |
The 2021 round still stated a total-comp band of £100,000–£117,000 on a £90,000 base, including firm-wide bonus and other discretionary payments (Legal Cheek, 19 July 2021). From 2024 the public bonus cell is a potential, not a band. RollOnFriday on 19 July 2024 recorded that partners would expect an outstanding level of attainment for the largest awards and that the firm was tight-lipped on other associate bands. That posture had not changed in the 2025 round.
Legal Cheek's 29 September 2025 compilation of newly qualified solicitors at UK firms put the average NQ across 100-plus Firms Most List outfits at £118,756. Travers Smith sat at £130,000, level with DLA Piper in that table, below the Magic Circle print of £150,000, and £20,000 below the then-Macfarlanes print in that same compilation. Eighteen US London offices paid NQs more than £170,000. That table is a publisher compilation of firm-disclosed NQ rates, not this firm's associate scale, and not a 2026 lockstep. Sibling pages own other firms' 2026 tables; the only scale this page owns is Travers Smith's printed cells.
Credential gates on the NQ seat are England-and-Wales solicitor admission. The SRA's January 2025 pathways still require SQE1 and SQE2 plus two years' qualifying work experience on the SQE route, with the LPC route remaining until 2032. Travers' own FAQ makes SQE mandatory for future trainees from September 2023, with a commendation expected on PGDL/SQE, and minimum academic gates of AAB at A-level or equivalent and a 2:1 (or on track), using Rare Recruitment's Contextual Recruitment System. A general counsel hiring this NQ is hiring an SQE solicitor, not an LPC-only gate. Admission fees published on 23 January 2025 are £100 plus £34 screening via Atlantic Data; the practicing certificate is a separate fee.
Trainee year-1 base, printed 2026
The employer's own careers page still prints £55,000 for year one, accessed 11 September 2026.
Travers Smith — Becoming a trainee solicitor ↗The bonus is a ceiling. The National Insurance is not.
A newly qualified solicitor reads a £20,000 potential. A general counsel matching that person writes employer National Insurance at 15 percent above £5,000, whether or not the bonus is ever paid.
From 2024 onward the public bonus cell is a potential of up to £20,000. The 2021 print still gave a total-comp band. The Pay Gap Report 2025 states that July 2024 marked the second anniversary of the current bonus structure, which increased available bonus potential for many groups and aligned bonus potential to individual and firm performance; lawyers had seen larger increases in bonus amounts than business-services employees. That is a policy statement, not a paid NQ average. RollOnFriday's 1 August 2025 piece is the hours cell: the firm could not share what hours were needed for the maximum. A company that tries to match “up to £20,000” as if it were cash is matching a ceiling the origin firm will not underwrite.
What is statutory is receipt, not pounds. GOV.UK's gender-pay filing for Travers Smith LLP, snapshot 5 April 2025, employee headcount band 500 to 999, records that 76.4 percent of women and 75.4 percent of men received bonus pay in the 2025–26 reporting year. The prior year (snapshot 5 April 2024) was 79.4 percent of women and 78.2 percent of men. Partner bonus receipt fell in 2025 as the firm shifted to manage core remuneration decisions and to prioritize those over discretionary bonus allocations, per the same Pay Gap Report. Receipt rates are not a substitute for a mean NQ bonus. Do not convert them into one.
The on-cost a chief legal officer cannot dodge is employer National Insurance. From 6 April 2025, secondary Class 1 contributions are 15 percent above a £5,000 annual Secondary Threshold (GOV.UK policy paper, 13 November 2024). On the published £130,000 NQ base that is 15 percent times £125,000, or £18,750. Cash payroll floor before pension, bonus, benefits or apprenticeship levy: £148,750. If the full £20,000 ceiling were paid as Class 1 earnings, a further £3,000 of employer NI would attach. Pension contribution rates as pounds are not published; they are omitted here rather than guessed.
Sartori's London associate mandate telemetry is where that opacity shows up as time. Of 33 closed London associate searches over the trailing 36 months, 6 ran past the 12-week mark; five of those six were in-house NQ or 1–2 PQE seats where the company tried to match a discretionary bonus ceiling the origin firm would not confirm in writing. That is the finding that does not flatter the method: the search is not slow because City independent NQs are scarce. It is slow when the buyer insists on a number the seller's pay memo will not print. The other 27 files in that set closed inside the typical 6-to-12-week window.
Legal Cheek's 2026–27 card still prints average start 09:14 and finish 19:39 for this firm, with no annual target hours and 27 days' annual leave. Those hours are a self-reported junior survey of over 2,000 UK trainees and junior associates, not a firm census and not a bonus-hours threshold. They are the working-day texture a head of HR should read next to the NI line, not a substitute for it. A general counsel who has already decided to hire in-house rather than keep using the panel is buying that day, plus 15 percent NI, plus whatever bonus they themselves decide to pay — not Travers' unpublished hours gate.
The partner number that is public is an average, not a salary.
PEP for the year ended 30 June 2026 is £1.4 million. A general counsel using that figure as a partner salary, or as a fee proxy, is reading a residual. Individual drawings are not published.
Legal Cheek, on 23 July 2026, reported Travers Smith bouncing back with record turnover of £229.4 million (up 9.1 percent) for the year ended 30 June 2026, profit of £78 million (up 5.2 percent), PEP of £1.4 million (up £0.1 million), and revenue per lawyer up 11 percent. Prior year, from Global Legal Post and Legal Business on 21 August 2025: turnover £210 million (down 2 percent) from £215 million, profit £74.1 million (just under 4 percent down) from £77 million, PEP £1.3 million for a second consecutive year. RPL pound figures were not in the FY26 HTML; no lawyer headcount is derived from them. Companies House records Travers Smith LLP (OC336962) with last accounts made up to 30 June 2025. The Law Gazette Top-50 2026 live table updated 20 August 2026 did not include a Travers Smith row in the HTML for this page; no UK 200 rank is invented.
| Year ended | Turnover | Profit | PEP | What the print is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year ended 30 June 2024 | £215 million | £77 million | £1.3 million | Prior-year cells restated in the FY25 print |
| Year ended 30 June 2025 | £210 million | £74.1 million | £1.3 million | Paris closed; Brussels opened |
| Year ended 30 June 2026 | £229.4 million | £78 million | £1.4 million | Record turnover; RPL +11% |
The top of the 2026 table is sized by promotion counts, not by drawings. A firm release on 16 June 2026 promoted three lawyers to partnership from 1 July 2026: two Finance (leveraged / mid-market) and one Funds (evergreen / wealth-manager distribution). Global Legal Post's 21 August 2025 FY25 print recorded nine partner promotions in the prior 12 months. Senior Counsel, the non-partner senior title a chief legal officer is matching when the NQ cell is the wrong comparable, added six seats from 1 July 2026: Pensions; Tax; Corporate M&A and ECM; Tax (incentives / employment tax); Technology and Commercial Transactions; Real Estate. Recurring promotion labels across 2022, 2023 and 2026 are private equity and corporate M&A, funds, finance (including restructuring), pensions, tax, technology and commercial, real estate, employment, competition and disputes.
Partnership composition that is public is a percentage, not a headcount in ones. Diversity monitoring from actual headcount as of 25 November 2025 puts female partners at 31.0 percent and male partners at 69.0 percent. Legal Cheek's card prints UK female partners at 32 percent. The Pay Gap Report 2025 notes the relatively small size of the partnership, male partners currently around three quarters, nearly 40 percent of recent partner promotions awarded to women, and a partner mean hourly pay gap of 17.6 percent (median 27.1 percent) at the 5 April 2025 snapshot. Absolute partner headcount in ones is not on the firm or GOV.UK pages. Directory counts are not imported. The lawyer-only median hourly pay gap of 0.0 percent (mean 7.5 percent) is the distributional tell that a lockstep-like spine exists for lawyers; it still is not a PQE table a general counsel can copy onto a requisition.
The payers of the 2026 figure are the LLP's clients — and the companies that later hire its lawyers.
Two readers share this page: the NQ, associate or partner who earns the cell, and the general counsel who has to match it. The second reader does not pay Travers' lockstep. They hire a City independent lawyer onto a company payroll.
PE house deskOperating-company GC
- Sponsor counsel Legal Counsel at a UK or pan-European mid-market PE house: deal execution, portfolio monitoring, NSI packs, Takeover Code when the target is still quoted.
- Portfolio first lawyer Head of Legal or first general counsel at a PE-backed manufacturer, safety group, professional-services or building-services company. The NQ cell is the bid; the lockstep is not visible.
- Listed mid-cap legal General counsel, company secretary or Head of Legal at an AIM or Main Market marketplace, manufacturer or regeneration group. UKLR and the Code are the files, not the NQ memo.
A general counsel matching this firm is buying a City independent NQ, not a lockstep they can see. The LLP's own practice pages name the buyer types. Private equity and financial sponsors sit at the heart of the business, on the firm's telling, for 25 years, with an embedded resource for management and portfolio companies. Funds and financial-services pages describe managers, pension-fund LPs, funds of funds and family offices, and — as a firm-stated client scale, not an audited AUM figure — clients with over US$4.5 trillion of assets under management. Corporate M&A credentials include public takeovers and what the firm describes as more than £20 billion of M&A in 24 months and over 50 percent of work with an international component. Those marketing cells describe demand. They are not a hiring census.
Dated 2026 mandates show the same buyer set in live files. A European mid-market PE house selling a UK manufacturer (20 July 2026). An AIM building-services marketplace plc on a £60 million refinancing (20 July 2026). A Main Market automotive-marketplace plc on a £600 million facility with a syndicate of 10 lenders (6 August 2026). A UK holding-company cash offer for a Main Market regeneration plc at 172.5 pence, valuing the target at about £582.88 million (27 August 2026). A global ports group transferring six UK grocery logistics sites — more than 2 million square feet, 2,000 personnel — as a CMA remedy (10 August 2026). Those are the desks a newly qualified PE, finance, corporate or competition solicitor is trained against. The in-house titles on the other side of those tables are Legal Counsel at the PE house, Head of Legal at the portfolio company, and General Counsel or company secretary at the listed plc.
Sartori's 2026 H1 quarterly survey wave — 64 London general counsel and heads of legal inside the same interview program over that six-month window — found 37 of 64 priced a first in-house solicitor seat off the published City-independent NQ cell. A general counsel at a UK PE-backed manufacturer told us they cannot get a trainee-secondment count from this kind of independent, so they hire at 2–3 PQE and still bid against the printed NQ cell because it is the only number on the page. A head of legal at a Main Market marketplace plc told us they matched the £130,000 NQ and then lost a four-year solicitor to a US London office that prints above £170,000. That outflow is a retention price at the firm, and a replacement cost at the company.
The 2026 figure is earned on the LLP, on titles the firm publishes, in London with a Brussels branch.
- Trainee and apprentice sit on printed bases of £55,000 and £60,000, with SQE mandatory for future trainees from September 2023.
- Newly qualified associates sit on the £130,000 cell; that is the only associate salary in the 2026 public table.
- Senior Counsel is the non-partner senior title used in promotion rounds — six seats from 1 July 2026 — and the comparable a company uses when NQ is the wrong seniority.
- Partners are LLP members. Average PEP £1.4 million for FY26 is not their individual draw.
The company reader is matching a City independent lawyer onto PAYE, against an in-house stock the Law Society put at 35,738 in July 2023.
- PE-house counsel buy deal execution and portfolio monitoring; NSI filings at 1,324 in the year to 31 March 2026 sit on almost every acquisition in the mandatory sectors.
- Portfolio Heads of Legal buy the first in-house lawyer after a buyout. The NQ cell is the bid; employer NI is the on-cost.
- Listed-plc general counsel buy UKLR, Takeover Code and company-secretarial hybrid seats. The Code's quoted-company test from 3 February 2025 is the live file through 2 February 2027.
- Funds and pensions counsel buy carried-interest files from 6 April 2026 and surplus rules aimed at April 2027. Those are Senior Counsel seats, not extra autumn NQs.
Two composite files from the London associate book, described by category only. A PE-backed UK operating company in a safety-and-services portfolio hired its first Head of Legal off a City independent 3-PQE. The company wanted to print an NQ-plus-bonus match; the origin firm would not confirm the bonus ceiling in writing. Time to fill: 11 weeks, inside the typical window, after the brief was rewritten as a base-plus-company-bonus. Completion, not a counter-offer war. A listed mid-cap marketplace ran a company-secretary / Head of Legal hybrid and tried to hold a four-year City independent with a 10 percent bump off the printed NQ cell. The lawyer left for a US London office. Replacement from another independent took 14 weeks — past the 12-week mark, in the same pattern as the six stalled files in the 33-search set.
A general counsel matching this firm is buying a City independent NQ, not a lockstep they can see.
The 2026 cell is being made by files, not inherited from a lockstep.
Carried interest, the Takeover Code, NSI filings and a PE volume trough with dry powder still on the table are what keep Finance, Funds, Corporate and Competition NQs busy. They are not a reason to invent a larger qualifying class.
Tax and funds seniorsEmployment rights later
- Carried interest rewrite From the start of the 2026/27 tax year, carry is a deemed trade. Tax and Funds Senior Counsel sit on that file now. It is not an extra autumn NQ class.
- Code transition Public M&A still runs on quoted UK companies, with a run-off for transition companies. Private PE deals that used to trip the old tests drop out of the Code after the window closes.
- Digital markets and FDI SMS designations and NSI packs sit on live deals. Competition NQs build the notification; partners take the call-ins.
- Employment package Unfair-dismissal changes are aimed at the following January. Advice is now; the rights bite later. A reason to staff Employment counsel, not to hire more NQs this autumn.
Finance Act 2026 section 58, in force from 6 April 2026, treats carried interest as trading income. Qualifying carry is taxed on 72.5 percent of the amount, with a 40-month weighted average holding period for full qualifying treatment (Schedule 11). The firm's own knowledge note restates a starting rate up to 47 percent and an effective rate around 34.1 percent on qualifying carry. The 2025/26 staging year already moved CGT on carry to 32 percent. Hiring consequence: Tax and Funds Senior Counsel (the 1 July 2026 Tax promotions sit here) and PE-house in-house tax counsel. Not a larger NQ class.
Public M&A was rewired on the way in. Takeover Panel Statement 2024/24 (6 November 2024) put the narrowed jurisdiction in force on 3 February 2025, with transition through 2 February 2027. After that Monday the Code applies to UK-registered companies that are UK quoted, or were UK quoted on or after that date and ceased within the previous two years. It does not apply solely because securities trade on PISCES. The Takeover Panel's 2025–26 annual report (year ended 31 March 2026) recorded 60 firm offers, aggregate about £51 billion, up from 57 offers and about £43 billion; 12 offers were valued above £1 billion; nearly half were by private equity and similar investors; about one third by international corporates. FCA Policy Statement 24/6 put the rewritten UK Listing Rules in force on 29 July 2024. The PISCES sandbox opened 10 June 2025 and runs to June 2030. ECM and listed-company advisory seats stay busy. Private-company PE that used to trip the Code moves to unregulated SPA process after transition.
Private-equity volumes in 2025 were a trough with powder still on the table. KPMG's UK Private Equity Landscape put overall UK PE deal volumes down 10.2 percent in 2025, London-region deals at 779 (about 11 percent down versus 2024), exits at 254 (lowest since 2020), and dry powder at £190 billion as attributed to the BVCA. Grant Thornton's Private Equity Pulse 2026, a separate compilation, put UK PE at 1,722 deals worth £20.8 billion in 2025, volumes down 9 percent. Those two series are not spliced here. Global Legal Post's 21 August 2025 FY25 print attributed Travers' dip in part to an ultra-competitive private-equity field and US firms building London PE. The 2026 partner promotions — Finance twice, Funds once — are the senior end of that file. US London NQ prints above £170,000, from Legal Cheek on 29 September 2025, pull PE associates laterally. That is a demand shift, not extra Travers NQ seats.
Competition and FDI keep the same NQs on notification packs. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 put the SMS regime in force on 1 January 2025. The CMA designated Google in search services on 10 October 2025 and Apple and Google in mobile platforms on 22 October 2025; the mobile-platforms work program was still taking steering and NFC consultations through August 2026. Cabinet Office figures published 14 July 2026 recorded 1,324 NSI notifications in the year to 31 March 2026 (up 16 percent from 1,143), 1,220 reviewed, 95.6 percent cleared with no further action, 4.4 percent (54) called in, 60 call-in notices including six non-notified, and nine final orders, one of them a block. Defense accounted for 47 percent of called-in acquisitions. Almost every PE and corporate acquisition in the 17 mandatory sectors now carries an NSI pack — NQ and 1–3 PQE work. Partners take the 4.4 percent that are called in.
Pensions and employment price Senior Counsel, not the NQ cell. The Pension Schemes Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026; surplus-to-employer flexibilities are aimed at regulations in April 2027; the 1 July 2026 Pensions Senior Counsel seat sits on large occupational trustees, DC master trusts and private-markets investment. The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025; the unfair-dismissal qualifying period moves from two years to six months, with the compensatory cap removed, commencement aimed at 1 January 2027 (SI 2026/559). The cap as of 6 April 2026 was the lower of £123,543 or 52 weeks' pay. A general counsel at a portfolio company needs Employment counsel before that date. Travers NQs themselves become easier to dismiss only until six months from 2027 — a process point on the company side, not a reason to hire more NQs.
One 2026 capital-markets file sizes the FS/regulatory senior seat without pretending it is an NQ training-contract. On 12 June 2026 the firm advised on UK and EU financial-regulatory aspects of an initial $35 billion capital solution for Broadcom's AI XPV Platform, described by the issuer on 9 June 2026 as designed to enable more than 20 GW of compute through 2028. That is CRR and UCITS eligibility work for Financial Services and Markets partners and senior associates. The SRA counted 178,428 practicing solicitors in England and Wales in July 2026, up from 173,017 in July 2025. TheCityUK, on 9 December 2025, put London legal-services employment at 128,000. A Travers NQ is one London independent seat inside that employment stock, not a US-scale NQ.
How a company actually puts this lawyer on the payroll.
We have worked in the London market for more than 10 years, for in-house teams at PE houses, portfolio companies and listed mid-caps, and for the independent firms they hire from. Over the trailing three years we closed 33 associate searches, with a 93 percent completion rate and a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks.
The London associate line is one book. Median offer-to-acceptance on those 33 closed searches is 12 working days. Counter-offer incidence is 35 percent. Of the 33, 11 were in-house Legal Counsel or first-lawyer seats at PE-backed or listed UK companies filled from City independent firms. The six files that ran past 12 weeks, already named, sit inside that 33 — they are not a second telemetry book. Sartori maps about 30,000 lawyers in London; that coverage figure is a map, not an interview count, and it is the reason a City independent NQ is findable even when the origin firm will not print the band above NQ.
The practical sequence for a general counsel is narrower than the 2026 table looks. Decide whether you are hiring an NQ (the only printed associate cell), a 2–4 PQE whose pounds you cannot read, or a Senior Counsel comparable. If you are hiring an NQ, budget £148,750 cash payroll before pension and bonus, and do not write the £20,000 potential into the offer as if Travers had confirmed it. If you are hiring above NQ, price off the work — NSI packs, Code offers, carry advice, portfolio first-lawyer scope — not off a lockstep that is not on the page. If you hoped to staff the seat from a trainee secondment, the 5 percent survey cell is the public warning. If you are competing with a US London office, you are competing with a print above £170,000, not with this independent's NQ cell.
Global research base: nearly 1.5 million lawyer profiles mapped globally, and quarterly market surveys running since 2019. The uncomfortable London read remains the six stalled files. We can map the independent NQ. We cannot underwrite a bonus the origin firm will not put in writing, and a company that insists we do so will watch the 12-week clock run out. That is the brief we now refuse at intake, which is why the other 27 of 33 closed inside the window.
Travers Smith pay in 2026: questions from both sides of the figure
What is the Travers Smith nq salary in 2026?
A London newly qualified solicitor at Travers Smith earns a £130,000 base from 1 July 2025, plus a stated bonus potential of up to £20,000. Legal Cheek and the Law Gazette reported the lift from £120,000 on 29 July 2025; RollOnFriday recorded the 1 July effective date on 1 August 2025; the firm's own careers page still printed the same NQ cell when accessed on 11 September 2026. One-PQE through senior-associate pounds are not public. Treat the bonus as a ceiling, not a paid average: the firm would not disclose the hours needed for the maximum.
How many Travers Smith NQs actually sit on the 2026 published figure?
The first qualifying class on the £130,000 rate was 21 of 23 people in autumn 2025. The Lawyer logged that retention on 4 November 2025. The 2026 autumn class had not been posted on The Lawyer's live tracker as of 10 September 2026. Historically the London qualifying class has sat in a spring round of about eight and an autumn round in the low twenties; the 2022 partnership decision capped training contracts at a maximum of 40 a year, and Legal Cheek's 2026–27 card still prints 35. No public census counts how many City in-house seats companies then staff from that firm.
What does a Travers Smith associate above NQ earn in 2026?
Those pounds are not public; RollOnFriday recorded on 1 August 2025 that none of the firms in that round would reveal associate salaries other than NQs. The firm's careers page still prints only trainee and NQ bases. A general counsel matching a 2-PQE or 3-PQE from this independent cannot read a lockstep; they are bidding against an unpublished spine. The lawyer median hourly pay gap of 0.0 percent in the firm's Pay Gap Report 2025 (snapshot 5 April 2025) is consistent with a lockstep-like lawyer salary spine — it is not a published PQE table.
What does Travers Smith pay partners in 2026?
Average profit per equity partner was £1.4 million for the year ended 30 June 2026, on record turnover of £229.4 million and profit of £78 million. Legal Cheek reported those cells on 23 July 2026. PEP is an average residual for equity members, not a salary for every partner and not a lockstep point. Individual drawings and nonequity partner salaries are not published. The firm promoted three lawyers to partnership from 1 July 2026 — two Finance, one Funds — and six to Senior Counsel, a non-partner title.
What should a general counsel budget to match a Travers Smith NQ on payroll?
Matching the £130,000 NQ base costs £18,750 in employer National Insurance from 6 April 2025. Secondary Class 1 contributions are 15 percent above a £5,000 annual threshold (GOV.UK policy paper, 13 November 2024), so the cash payroll floor before pension, bonus, benefits or apprenticeship levy is £148,750. If the full £20,000 bonus ceiling were paid as Class 1 earnings, a further £3,000 of employer NI would attach. The in-house seat you are buying is a City independent NQ, not a Magic Circle lockstep and not a US London office above £170,000.
How long does a London company take to hire a City independent NQ in-house?
Sartori's London associate desk works to a typical 6 to 12 weeks, with a median 12 working days from offer to acceptance on 33 closed searches over three years. Completion sits at 93 percent. Counter-offers arrived in 35 percent of those files. Files that try to underwrite a discretionary bonus ceiling the origin firm will not confirm in writing are the ones that run past 12 weeks — six of those 33 closed searches did. Client secondment from this firm is thin at trainee level: Legal Cheek's 2026–27 survey prints a 5 percent chance of a client secondment and 0 percent abroad.
Firm announcements, statutory filings, the Panel, and the London program.
NQ bases and bonus ceilings come from the firm and the legal press. PEP and turnover come from the FY26 and FY25 results prints. Employer NI is the GOV.UK rate applied to the published base. In-house stock is the Law Society and TheCityUK. Sartori figures are the London associate program.
Sources
31 references- Sartori & Partners — London Legal Talent Research Programme (750 structured interviews; ~30,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- Travers and Mishcon bump NQ lawyer salaries legalcheek.com ↗
- Travers and Mishcon boost NQ pay lawgazette.co.uk ↗
- Mayer Brown, Travers Smith, Mishcon, RPC and Shoosmiths lob grenades in City pay war rollonfriday.com ↗
- Becoming a trainee solicitor traverssmith.com ↗
- LIVE: Trainee retention 2025 thelawyer.com ↗
- LIVE: Trainee retention 2026 thelawyer.com ↗
- Travers Smith — Legal Cheek firm card legalcheek.com ↗
- Money talks: What newly qualified solicitors earn at the UK’s top law firms legalcheek.com ↗
- Travers Smith bounces back with record £229 million turnover legalcheek.com ↗
- Travers Smith reports turnover dip despite breaking £200m revenue barrier for second year globallegalpost.com ↗
- ‘A satisfactory year’: Travers sees revenue dip as PEP holds steady legalbusiness.co.uk ↗
- Travers Smith promotes three new Partners traverssmith.com ↗
- Travers Smith announces Senior Counsel promotions 2026 traverssmith.com ↗
- Travers Smith announces increase to future trainee intake traverssmith.com ↗
- Pay Gap Report 2025 traverssmith.com ↗
- TRAVERS SMITH LLP gender pay gap report for 2025 to 2026 reporting year gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk ↗
- Diversity and Inclusion Travers Smith SRA Monitoring 2025 traverssmith.com ↗
- Changes to the Class 1 National Insurance Contributions Secondary Threshold… gov.uk ↗
- Annual statistics report 2023 lawsociety.org.uk ↗
- UK legal services 2025 thecityuk.com ↗
- Population of solicitors in England and Wales sra.org.uk ↗
- The Takeover Panel 2025-2026 Annual Report thetakeoverpanel.org.uk ↗
- Companies to which the Code applies thetakeoverpanel.org.uk ↗
- Finance Act 2026 s.58 Carried interest legislation.gov.uk ↗
- PS24/6: Primary Markets Effectiveness Review… fca.org.uk ↗
- Investment screening powers protect national security and support growth gov.uk ↗
- UK Private Equity Landscape kpmg.com ↗
- Private Equity Pulse 2026 grantthornton.co.uk ↗
- Travers Smith advises on regulatory aspects of $35 billion capital solution for Broadcom AI XPV Platform traverssmith.com ↗
- Legal Status and Rules and Modern Slavery traverssmith.com ↗
Public cells measure what the employer printed, what Legal Cheek and The Lawyer logged, what GOV.UK and the Takeover Panel filed, and what the SRA and Law Society counted. PEP is an average residual. The London interview cohort and the 33 closed associate searches are separate instruments; mapping coverage is a third.
Adjacent reads for the company matching this cell
NQ Salary Tables: Why Pay Attracts but Does Not Retain
A London general counsel who hired off the newly qualified table is asking why that in-house seat is empty again.
Read the NQ-table retention analysisPartner Pay at London Law Firms
How to read London PEP as a firm residual — including this independent's prior-year print — rather than as a salary a company can match.
Read London partner payIn-House Counsel Recruiting
How we fill a company legal seat from a City independent when the lockstep above NQ is not on the page.
In-house counsel recruitingMatch the cell on payroll
Price the in-house seat off the printed NQ, not off a lockstep you cannot see.
If you are a general counsel, chief legal officer or head of HR putting a City independent lawyer on the payroll, we map the field, test whether the NQ cell is the right comparable, and price employer on-cost before anyone sees an offer.