A candidate messaged us last week with a question that lands in our inbox almost every Monday: "I have an offer of a paralegal role at a regional firm — should I take it and chase a training contract, or should I just sit SQE1 and SQE2 on my own and worry about Qualifying Work Experience later?" There is no single right answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What there is, though, is a sensible framework for thinking it through.
Since the SRA scrapped the LPC monopoly in September 2021, the road to admission has split into two broad lanes. One looks familiar — a traditional training contract dressed in new clothes. The other is a self-directed route built around SQE1, SQE2 and two years of Qualifying Work Experience (QWE) gathered however you can. Let's unpack which one tends to suit which kind of candidate.
What "training contract" actually means in the SQE era
Strictly speaking, training contracts in the old LPC sense no longer exist as a regulatory category. Firms still use the phrase out of habit and marketing convenience, but what they are really offering is a structured two-year programme of QWE, usually combined with sponsored SQE preparation and the exam fees paid for. Magic Circle and large City firms typically bundle in a tailored SQE prep course, a stipend during study leave, and rotation through multiple practice areas.
For a candidate who lands one, the appeal is obvious: salary from day one, structured supervision by a solicitor, exposure to four or more departments, and a near-automatic admission once both stages of the SQE are passed. You also walk in on day one of NQ year with a known employer and a known team.
Key point: a training contract today is essentially "QWE plus sponsorship plus a guaranteed NQ application". The legal label has changed; the commercial reality has not.
The SQE-only route: faster, cheaper, lonelier
The "SQE-only" route is shorthand for sitting FLK1 and FLK2, then SQE2, and accumulating QWE separately — perhaps through paralegal work, a legal clinic, in-house experience, or even pro bono at a law centre signed off by a solicitor. The SRA permits up to four different placements to count towards the two-year requirement, which is far more flexible than the old training contract regime.
The attraction is real. You can begin preparing for SQE1 while still in a non-legal job, sit the exam at one of the two annual windows, and have the whole assessment piece done within twelve to eighteen months. You keep control of timing, location and pace. For career changers in their thirties who cannot afford to drop salary for two years of training contract pay, this often makes the maths work.
The drawback is equally real. Nobody is going to hold your hand through QWE sign-off. You have to find the work, persuade a solicitor to supervise and confirm the competences in writing, and self-fund the exams (currently £1,888 for SQE1 and £2,902 for SQE2, per the latest SRA fee schedule). Plenty of strong candidates pass both stages, then spend another nine months hunting for an NQ role because they lack the brand-name training contract on the CV.
Who should chase the training contract
In our experience tutoring SQE candidates since the very first sitting in 2021, the training contract route makes the most sense for three groups.
Recent law or PGDL graduates under 25. If you have just finished a qualifying degree, your CV is set up for the traditional vacation-scheme-to-training-contract funnel. City firms still recruit two years in advance and they pay for everything. Walking away from that subsidy without a strong reason is rarely wise.
Candidates aiming at a specific City or international practice. If your goal is corporate M&A at a Silver Circle firm, the firm's own SQE prep, its trainee cohort, and its NQ retention process are all geared to push you into that seat. Trying to break in laterally after self-funded SQE is genuinely harder.
Anyone who needs financial sponsorship. The combined cost of preparation, exam fees and two years of self-supported QWE is not small. A funded training contract removes that pressure entirely.
Who is better suited to the SQE-only path
On the other side of the ledger, the SQE-only route quietly suits more people than the profession likes to admit.
Overseas-qualified lawyers, including those previously eligible for the QLTS, are a natural fit. If you are already admitted in India, Nigeria, China, Pakistan, the US or anywhere else with a recognised qualification, the SRA will usually grant exemption from QWE on the basis of your existing practice. For you, the question is purely about passing SQE1 and SQE2 — and the route is unambiguously SQE-only.
Career changers in their thirties and forties who already work in compliance, banking, insurance or accountancy. You may be able to negotiate QWE recognition with your current employer's in-house legal team, and your sector experience often makes you more marketable at NQ level than a 24-year-old trainee.
Paralegals with two or more years already on the clock. If a solicitor at your firm is willing to sign off your competences, you are effectively most of the way through QWE without realising it. Sitting SQE1 and SQE2 in your own time, while keeping the day job, can be quicker than waiting in the training contract queue.
Anyone who has tried and failed to secure a training contract for two or more cycles. The opportunity cost of a third or fourth attempt is enormous. Sitting the SQE on your own, demonstrably passing it, and applying for NQ roles is sometimes the cleaner move.
A practical decision framework for SQE1, SQE2 and QWE
Here is the rough sequence we walk candidates through during a planning call.
Ask yourself, honestly, three things. Do I have a realistic shot at a funded training contract within the next 12 months? Can I survive financially for two years on QWE-equivalent pay without firm sponsorship? Do I already have, or can I credibly obtain, a solicitor willing to sign off QWE competences?
Two yeses and you should probably keep applying for training contracts while quietly starting SQE1 prep in the background — the substantive law you learn for FLK1 (Contract, Tort, Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, English Legal System, Constitutional and Administrative Law, Legal Services) and FLK2 (Property, Land, Trusts, Wills and Administration of Estates, Solicitor Accounts, Criminal Law and Practice) is the same either way. A pass before your training contract starts is an asset, not a waste.
One yes, two nos, and the SQE-only route is probably your faster path to admission. Lock in your QWE source first, then book SQE1 for the next available window.
Practical tip: whichever route you choose, the SQE itself does not change. Two FLK papers of 180 Single Best Answer MCQs each, 5 hours 20 minutes per paper, followed by SQE2's five skills — Client Interviewing, Advocacy, Case and Matter Analysis, Legal Research, and Legal Writing/Drafting — sat on the closed Pearson VUE platform with no internet and no Boolean search, only Ctrl+F.
Common mistakes on both routes
Training contract candidates often assume their firm's bundled prep is enough. Sometimes it is. Often it is heavily front-loaded into the first six weeks of study leave, with limited tutor contact for the final stretch. Supplementing with focused question-bank practice on weaker topics — Trusts Law and Solicitor Accounts are the usual culprits — is a sensible insurance policy.
SQE-only candidates make the opposite mistake: they over-rely on textbooks and under-practise MCQs. The SQE1 examiners reward applied legal reasoning, not recitation. If you cannot work through a hypothetical involving an exclusion clause under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, or apply the rule in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 to a novel duty-of-care scenario, you will struggle on exam day regardless of how many statutes you have highlighted.
A second SQE-only trap is poor QWE record-keeping. The SRA does not vet your placements during the work, only at sign-off. Keep a contemporaneous log of the competences you have demonstrated, in your own words, dated and cross-referenced to the Statement of Solicitor Competence. Future-you will thank present-you.
How CELE SQE can help
Whichever route you choose, the assessment hurdle is the same — and that is where we come in. Our SQE1 Long-term Course at £3,720 covers all 13 subjects across FLK1 and FLK2 with full tutor support; the Mid-term Course at £2,750 suits candidates with six to nine months on the clock; and the Short-term Course at £1,750 is our intensive sprint option. Single FLK enrolments are available at half price, and there is a £150 early-bird (or within-3-months-of-exam) discount. For SQE2 we offer a focused £1,450 course with 61 full mock questions built 1:1 to the SRA format. If you would like an honest, no-pressure chat about which route — and which course — fits your circumstances, find us at celebar.com, WeChat SQE100, or [email protected].