Diversity of the judiciary: Legal professions, new appointments and current post-holders - 2025 Statistics

Question 1

1. Main Points

Accepted Answer

1.1 Sex


The female population is generally well represented in the legal professions and judiciary.		41% of barristers, 54% of solicitors, 78% of Chartered Legal Executives, and 44% of all judges were female. These continue their steady upward trends.
There is no disparity between female and male candidates in their selection to judicial posts.		Female candidates represented 49% of the eligible pool and 52% of recommendations in legal judicial selection exercises.

1.2 Ethnicity


There has been a gradual increase in the representation of ethnic minorities in the legal professions and judiciary. However, the proportion of black judges has remained the same.		Since 2015, the ethnic minority proportion of barristers increased from 14% to 17%, of solicitors from 15% to 19%, of Chartered Legal Executives from 5% to 12%, and from 7% to 12% for all judges. Representation of Black judges has remained at 1% of all judges.
There is no evidence of disparity for ethnic minority candidates overall compared to White candidates in legal judicial selection exercises from eligible pool to recommendation.		Across all legal exercises in 2024-25, ethnic minority candidates accounted for 15% of the eligible pool and 17% of recommendations.

1.3 Professional background


There is evidence of disparity for solicitors in legal judicial selection exercises compared to barristers.		For all legal exercises in 2024-25, solicitors (45%) made up more applicants than barristers (37%) - but constituted a smaller percentage of the recommendations (24% compared to 48%).
Tribunal judges are twice as likely to have a non-barrister background than court judges		Overall, 31% of court judges and 62% of tribunal judges were from non-barrister backgrounds (mostly solicitors).

1.4 Judges sitting in retirement


In comparison to judges, a lower proportion of judges sitting in retirement are female or from an ethnic minority background, but a higher proportion have a non-barrister background.		Nearly a third (31%) of all judges sitting in retirement are female. Ethnic minorities made up about 7%. Non-barristers made up over half (54%) of judges sitting in retirement, compared to 40% for all current judges.

1.5 Non-legal Members of Tribunals


Compared with judges, a higher proportion of non-legal members are female, or from an ethnic minority background.		Of all non-legal tribunal members, over a half (58%) were female and those with an ethnic minority background constituted 18%, compared to 44% and 12% for all judges respectively.

1.6 Magistrates


The proportions of female and ethnic minority individuals were higher amongst the magistracy than in the judiciary.		Over half (57%) of all magistrates were female. Ethnic minorities made up 14%.
The proportions of female individuals and ethnic minority individuals appointed to the magistracy are comparable to those already in post.		Nearly 900 appointments were made to become a magistrate in 2024-25. Of those, 58% were female, and 13% were from an ethnic minority background.

Question 2

2. Statistician’s Comment

Accepted Answer

The female representation is strong across the judicial career path, from the legal professions who make up the eligible candidate pool, through the judicial appointments process, to the current judges in post. The exception to this is seen in the more senior court roles where female judges remain under-represented.

Ethnic minority representation amongst the legal professions is in line with the general population of working age (25-74). Representation within the judiciary is lower compared to the general working age population but is comparable to older ages of this working population (50-74).

For both the latest year and over a three-year period, there is no evidence of disparity in the judicial appointments process from eligible pool to recommendation between the combined group of ethnic minorities and White candidates in legal exercises. At a more granular level, this also applies to the Asian candidates compared to White candidates, while Mixed ethnicity candidates are more likely to be appointed when compared to White candidates.

Female representation and ethnic minority representation is higher in those posts which do not require a legal background (magistrates and non-legal tribunal members), compared to judicial posts. The proportions of those individuals appointed to the magistracy in the year who are female or from an ethnic background are comparable to the respective proportions of those magistrates in post.

Question 3

3. Things you need to know

Accepted Answer

This report brings together diversity data on the legal professions, judicial appointments, sitting judges and other post holders.

The accompanying User Guide contains extensive information about these statistics - on their background, sources and coverage. It also includes detailed description and explanation of terms used in the analysis of the data from the judicial selection exercises - such as ‘recommendation rate’, ‘relative rate index (RRI)’, ‘practical significance’, ‘statistical significance’ and ‘eligible pool’. We therefore strongly suggest the user guide is read alongside this report, particularly by anyone who is new to these statistics.

In addition to the User Guide, downloadable tables have been published alongside this bulletin which contain more detailed information, and these are referenced as ‘Tables’ throughout this report.

For this edition covering 2024/25, data on disability and socio-economic background has been published for some data providers, where possible, for the first time.

The Judicial Diversity Forum agreed in November 2024 that 15 or more years post qualification experience (PQE) would be an appropriate proxy measure of seniority in the legal professions, and that it is also the time where many successfully apply for the judiciary. Therefore, as a change from previous reports, although PQE represents a measure of experience rather than indicating inherent seniority, having 15 or more years PQE has been used as a proxy measure of being at a senior level in the legal professions. As barristers appointed to the senior judiciary are often Kings Counsel (KC) this is also still used as a proxy measure for seniority in this report.

In addition, a new interactive Microsoft Power BI (Business Intelligence) dashboard will be published soon alongside this report, to make it easier for users to access historical data, highlight trends and provide an alternative way to view and interrogate the data. To provide general feedback on the tool and related content of this publication, please contact us at: email judicial.statistics@justice.gov.uk

Question 4

4. Overview of the legal professions, selection exercises and judiciary

Accepted Answer

4.1 Legal professions

The legal professions form the pool from which the candidates who wish to become judges apply. Table 1.1 provides information about the sex, ethnicity and age of these professionals by experience and seniority. As at 1 April 2025, there were 18,009 barristers, 174,333 solicitors (including those who are exempt from holding a practising certificate by virtue of section 88 of the Solicitors Act 1974) and 8,477 Chartered Legal Executives^{[footnote 1]}.

The varying size of the professions should be kept in mind when interpreting the figures presented throughout this publication relating to the percentage of those in different professions with various characteristics (typically there will be more solicitors than barristers or Chartered Legal Executives).

4.2 Judicial Appointments: Applications and Selections

During 2024-25 the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) completed 35^{[footnote 2]} judicial selection exercises (excluding senior judicial appointments), 27 for legal posts and 8 non-legal tribunal exercises. There was a total of 6,382 applications^{[footnote 3]}, resulting in 914 recommendations for immediate appointment (s87)^{[footnote 4]}. Table 2.1 contains a full list of the exercises completed by the JAC between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, and a detailed breakdown of the number of applications and appointments for each type of exercise.

Where two or more applicants are assessed as being of equal merit, the JAC can select an applicant for the purpose of increasing judicial diversity using the Equal Merit Provision (EMP) introduced by the Crime and Courts Act 2013^{[footnote 5]}. EMP can be applied at both the shortlisting and final decision making stages. For exercises reporting in the 2024-25 period, as a result of applying EMP, 32 candidates were advanced to the next stage of the process at the shortlisting stage, and 6 candidates were recommended at final decision making stage^{[footnote 6]}.

Levels of experience among applicants

Judicial selection exercises have a minimum statutory level of post qualification experience (PQE). However, the actual levels of applicants’ PQE are often greater than these minimum requirements. For 2024-25, of all applicants for court and tribunal positions requiring at least 5 years’ post-qualification experience, applicants had around 18 years’ experience on average. Of those who applied for positions requiring at least 7 years’ experience, applicants had around 20 years’ experience on average. More specifically:

Court positions requiring 5 years’ PQE: the average PQE of applicants was around 18 years
Court positions requiring 7 years’ PQE: the average PQE of applicants was 20 years
Tribunal positions requiring 5 years’ PQE: the average PQE of applicants was around 19 years
Tribunal positions requiring 7 years’ PQE: the average PQE of applicants was 20 years

Therefore, where information on the eligible pool for the legal professions is presented in the following chapters, these actual averages are used to allow a more meaningful comparison.

Comparison with previous years

This publication presents data for selection exercises which concluded during 2024-25 and does not draw overall comparisons with previous years. Historical comparisons can be affected by the number and type of exercises run in any given year, which can vary according to recruitment needs, and by when exercises are formally closed (before or after the report’s cut-off date of 1 April each year). However, in certain exercises where data is consistently available across the years, summary statistics on recommendations for appointment have been presented in Table 2.5.

4.3 Judicial office holders

Table 3.1 shows that as at 1 April 2025, by primary appointment, there were 3,578 court judges and 1,716 tribunal judges, with an additional 3,069 non-legal members of tribunals.

Court and tribunal judge numbers fluctuate over time and there is little pattern in changes from one year to the next. Despite these fluctuations, compared to 2012 (the earliest year with data available on both courts and tribunals), the number of court judges (3,575 in 2012) is almost the same in 2025, while the number of tribunal judges (2,060 in 2012) has decreased.

Turnover in the judiciary tends to be relatively low, with 230 judges beginning their first appointment in 2024-25 - 59 (26%) in courts and 171 (74%) in tribunals, with 267 leaving in the same period - 144 (54%) court and 123 (46%) tribunal judges.

As at 1 April 2025 there were 248 judges sitting in retirement in England and Wales.

4.4 Magistrates

There were 14,636 magistrates in post across England and Wales as at 1 April 2025, very slightly up from last year (14,576).

Of the 4,112 applications to join the magistracy which concluded in 2024-25, 898 were for appointments.

Question 5

5. Sex

Accepted Answer

5.1 Legal Professions

Overall the female population is generally well represented in the legal professions, with each of the professions showing a gradual increase over the past decade.

Of the three professions, female barristers and solicitors are less likely to be at a senior level than their male colleagues, but male and female Chartered Legal Executives have a similar likelihood to be at a senior level.

Although the female population is generally well represented in the legal professions as a whole, as at 1 April 2025 the female proportion varied between the legal professions- from 41% of barristers, 54% of solicitors, to 78% of Chartered Legal Executives.

Table 1.2 shows that the female proportion in each of the three legal profession groups has gradually increased since 2015, with barristers and solicitors increasing five percentage points each, and Chartered Legal Executives increasing four percentage points over the last decade.

Post Qualification Experience and seniority^{[footnote 7]}

There is no ideal measure of ‘seniority’ in the professions. As a change from previous reports, although PQE represents a measure of experience rather than indicating inherent seniority, having 15 or more years PQE has been used as a proxy measure of being at a senior level in the legal professions. As barristers appointed to the senior judiciary are often Kings Counsel (KC) this is also still used as a proxy measure for seniority in this report.

Table 1.1 shows that:

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of male barristers have 15+ years’ experience compared to half (50%) of their female colleagues; and also, they are nearly three times more likely to be a King’s Counsel (16% compared to 6% respectively).
Over two thirds (69%) of male solicitors have 15+ PQE compared to over half (56%) for female solicitors^{[footnote 8]}.
For Chartered Legal Executives the proportion of those with 15+ years’ experience was similar for male and female members, at 39% and 37% respectively.

Figure 1: Proportion of female legal professionals by PQE band, April 2025^{[footnote 9]} Across all legal professions, the proportion of female professionals is notably lower for those having 20+ years’ experience.

5.2 Judicial Appointments: Applications and Selections

Overall, there is no evidence of a disparity in legal judicial selection in 2024-25 for female candidates relative to male candidates when comparing recommendation rates from the eligible pool.

Overall View

Table 2.2 shows that across all legal JAC exercises in 2024-25, female candidates^{[footnote 10]} accounted for 49% of the applications (2,259), 47% of those shortlisted (470) and 52% of the recommendations for appointment (218)^{[footnote 11]}.

These percentages suggest there was no disparity between male and female candidates in these exercises. This is borne out by the estimated^{[footnote 12]} RRI for the eligible pool to recommendation of 1.12, which shows that overall the likelihood of success is about 12% higher for female candidates from the eligible pool compared to male candidates. This difference is neither statistically nor practically significant^{[footnote 13]}. Similarly there was no evidence of a disparity between male and female applicants in these exercises from application to recommendation (RRI of 1.11).^{[footnote 14]}

This lack of difference between male and female candidates is also shown by their similar progressions rates in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The proportion of each sex progressing through the exercise stages (all legal exercises completed in 2024-25).

Exercise-specific Analysis

In 2024-25, of all the six legal exercises where an RRI could be calculated^{[footnote 15]}, none showed a sex disparity that was both statistically and practically significant (Figure 3). This means that that there is no evidence of disparity in the success rates between male and female candidates from eligible pool to recommendation in any of those exercises.

Similarly Table 2.2 shows that this is also the case when looking at the RRI values from application to recommendation.

Figure 3: RRI for female compared to male candidates, from eligible pool to recommendation (all legal exercises completed in 2024-25).

For Figure 3 above, note that the tolerance zone is shaded grey (0.8 to 1.25); results falling within this zone are considered to represent a disparity which is not large enough to be considered practically important. Where the confidence interval (represented by the arms extending from each dot) overlaps the parity line (1 on the x-axis), results are deemed as not statistically significant^{[footnote 13]}.

Representation percentages (Figure 4) help to show the progress of female candidates at different stages of the selection process. These show a fairly constant representation across the stages for the six large legal exercises.

Figure 4: The female proportion of the candidate pool at different stages of the appointments process, split by eligible pool type (5 years’ PQE, 7 years’ PQE, and Previous Judicial Experience (PJE)) and exercise, for large legal exercises completed in 2024-25.

5.3 Judicial Office Holders

Female representation among judges in post has been increasing steadily over recent years, for both courts and tribunals judges.

Judges in post

Table 3.4 shows that as at 1 April 2025, female representation among all court judges (39%) was 14 percentage points higher than in 2015^{[footnote 16]}, and that for all tribunal judges (at 54%) it was 10 percentage points higher than in 2015 (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Proportion of female court and tribunal judges as at 1 April, from 2015.

For context, just over half of the general population aged 25-74 and just under half of the economically active population of England and Wales are female^{[footnote 17]}. As judicial roles require substantial legal experience, a direct comparison with the general population does not provide as much insight on the progression of female representation in the judiciary as considering the makeup of the legal professions (as presented at the beginning of this chapter).

Entrants, promotions and leavers

Table 3.1 shows:

New entrants: Of the new entrants to the judiciary – those not previously holding a judicial appointment – during 2024-25, 60% were female. This meant that new entrants comprised twice as many of those in post for female judges (6%), compared to male judges (3%) as at 1 April 2025^{[footnote 18]}.

Promotions: The proportion of female judges in post who had been promoted in 2024-25 was the same as that for male judges (3%) - although the actual numbers are fairly small and can be affected year-on-year by the mix of roles involved.

Leavers: Of those who left the judiciary during 2024-25, 39% were female (26% in courts and 56% in tribunals - Figure 6).

Figure 6: Representation of female court and tribunal judges leaving and joining the judiciary, 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025.

Patterns by type of appointment

Female representation across the judiciary varies by appointment type and seniority (Figure 7).

As at 1 April 2025, in the courts, female judges held 28% of the more senior posts (High Court and above). The highest level of female representation was among the District Judge and Deputy District Judges (County Court) at 48%.

Table 3.1 also shows that, in tribunals, female judges accounted for over half (57%) of the most senior roles (Presidents)^{[footnote 19]}.

Figure 7: Female representation of court and tribunal judges by appointment^{[footnote 20]}, 1 April 2025.

Patterns by region

The proportion of female judges across the court judiciary also varies considerably by region, from 32% in Wales, to 43% in the Midlands (with England and Wales at 39%). Variations may reflect the nature of the appointments in the different regions, as well as the underlying regional make-up of both the general population and the eligible pool. Further information is available in Table 3.2.

Question 6

6. Ethnicity

Accepted Answer

6.1 Legal Professions

There has been a gradual increase in the representation of ethnic minorities in all three legal professions over the last decade.

Representation of individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds is lower at the senior level for each of the legal professions.

Overall Picture in Each Profession

Since 2015 there has been a gradual increase in the representation of ethnic minorities amongst the three legal professions. For barristers and solicitors, the ethnic minority proportion increased four percentage points to 17% and 19% respectively, and for Chartered Legal Executives it increased six percentage points to 12%^{[footnote 17]}.

At 1st April 2025, for all three professions the proportion of individuals from an ethnic minority background was broadly in line with those of the 25-74 working population in England and Wales from the 2021 Census, and slightly higher than the older 50-74 working population.^{[footnote 21]}

Looking at the groups making up the ethnic minority population, the main variation was in the representation of Asian ethnicity among solicitors (13%) being higher than the 25-74 working population (9%) and the older 50-74 working population (6%). Representation of Black individuals was similar for all three professions (3% to 4%), and was comparable to the 25-74 (4%) and 50-74 (3%) working age populations.

Within the Asian group, the representation of Bangladeshi individuals was the same for each of the three professions, but for all other sub-groups (Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, and Other) representation was higher for solicitors compared to barristers and Chartered Legal Executives. The proportion of Black Caribbean individuals was higher than Black African individuals amongst Chartered Legal Executives, but the other way round for barristers and solicitors.

Post Qualification Experience and seniority^{[footnote 24]}

As mentioned previously, although PQE is a measure of experience rather than seniority, a PQE of 15 years or more is being used as a proxy measure of seniority for the purpose of this report.

In practice, most applicants for judicial roles have more than the minimum experience. For court and tribunal posts requiring at least 5 years’ experience, applicants have on average around 18 years’ experience, and for court and tribunal posts requiring 7 or more years of experience, applicants have on average around 20 years’ experience^{[footnote 22]}. Table 1.1 shows that as at 1 April 2025:

Amongst barristers from an ethnic minority background 22% were newly qualified (0-4 years PQE) and 49% were at a senior (15+ years PQE) level, compared to 15% and 58% respectively for White barristers. Of ethnic minority barristers 8% were King’s Counsel, compared to 13% of White barristers.
Of those solicitors from an ethnic minority background 56% had 15 years or more PQE compared to 73% of White solicitors^{[footnote 8]}.
Amongst Chartered Legal Executives from an ethnic minority background, 51% were newly qualified and 17% were at a senior level, compared to 28% and 40% respectively for White Chartered Legal Executives.

Figure 8: The proportion of each PQE band by ethnic minority group and legal profession group, April 2025^{[footnote 23]}

Figure 9: The ethnic minority proportion of each PQE band by legal profession group, April 2025^{[footnote 23]}

6.2 Judicial Appointments: Applications and Selections

Single-year Analysis: 2024-25

Ethnic minority candidates were recommended for legal exercises in line with their representation in the eligible pool, suggesting no disparity in judicial appointments relative to White candidates when comparing recommendation rates from the eligible pool.

However, ethnic minority candidates made up a much higher percentage of applications than their representation in the eligible pool, and their representation decreased between each exercise stage, from application to shortlisting to recommendation for appointment.

For selection exercises that closed in the 2024-25 financial year, candidate numbers at the application, shortlisting and recommendation for appointment stages were not high enough to produce and publish statistics for a more granular ethnic minority group breakdown at the exercise level as the numbers would be too low to draw robust inferences and there would be a risk of individuals being identified from their personal data. Therefore, for individual exercises in this most recent year of data, we consider candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds together as one group and compare their progression outcomes to White candidates.

Later in this section we have grouped together exercises from 2022-23 to 2024-25 to generate a sufficient sample of candidates from which we can look at ethnic minority backgrounds on a more granular level in exercises for particular roles.