The role of a Paralegal in the UK is both indispensable and rewarding. As the legal sector continues to expand and adapt to evolving regulations, the demand for skilled paralegals remains strong. From prestigious law firms in London to legal departments in Manchester and Edinburgh, employers are actively seeking knowledgeable professionals, offering competitive salaries and excellent opportunities for career development in this dynamic field.
Paralegal salary
Base pay £20K – £28Kyr
£23K/yr average base pay
The estimated total pay for a Paralegal is £24,595 per year, with an average salary of £23,480 per year. This number represents the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users. The estimated additional pay is £1,115 per year. Additional pay could include cash bonus, commission, tips, and profit sharing.
The “Most Likely Range” reflects values within the 25th and 75th percentile of all pay data available for this role. Glassdoor salaries are powered by our proprietary machine learning model, which utilises salaries collected from our users and the latest government data to make pay predictions.
What do Paralegal earn
How much does a Paralegal make in United Kingdom?
£25,403/yr
Highest paying cities for Paralegal near United Kingdom
- London £29,942 per year
1.1k salaries reported - Enfield £27,051 per year
12 salaries reported - Norwich £26,961 per year
26 salaries reported - Camberley £26,762 per year
7 salaries reported - Ipswich £26,674 per year
9 salaries reported - Reading £25,143 per year
45 salaries reported - Southampton £25,012 per year
50 salaries reported - Bedford £24,810 per year
13 salaries reported - Redditch £22,200 per year
10 salaries reported
What’s on Quora?
What is a paralegal salary?
Ah, the ever-elusive paralegal salary. It’s like uncovering the secrets of the legal world, one paycheck at a time.
Now, paralegal salaries can vary depending on several factors. We’re talking about a delicate dance between experience, education, location, and the specific legal field you find yourself in. It’s a tantalizing blend of numbers and circumstances that make each paralegal salary unique.
While I can’t reveal precise figures because, as I mentioned above and can’t stress enough – they will vary immensely depending on your location, your level of expertise/skill, your experience… I CAN offer you a glimpse into the realm of paralegal earnings. According to BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) the average annual salary was recorded to be $56,230 for paralegals… at least in the US.
If you’re itching to delve deeper into the intricacies of a paralegal salary depending on the various factors I mentioned above, I recommend immersing yourself in the captivating world of research.
Top Answer
Busy. Stressful. Frustrating.
Busy. Paralegals always have work to do. A paralegal who is not busy is either going through a rare dead period or, in my opinion, not working hard enough.
Paralegals in busy firms generally have full plates and numerous deadlines to fulfill. Top that with some attorney dumping a project on a paralegal that s/he needs him/her to finish NOW, irrespective of the fact that other attorneys have already dumped projects on him/her that also need to be finished now. A paralegal could have set up a plan to work on X, Y and Z cases that day. That plan goes out the window when these attorneys dump these projects on them.
Stressful. I reincorporate my comment about “busy” by reference as if fully set forth herein.
Stress for paralegals come from many sources for many reasons:
Attorneys. Some of the attorneys I worked for caused me the most stress. The last attorney I worked for was abrupt, acerbic, aloof, difficult, often nasty, unreasonably demanding and, at the end of my time with him, ungrateful.
The attorney I worked for before him was anxiety personified – the receptionist once said this attorney ran around with her hair on fire. She wasn’t necessarily abrupt or acerbic, but she was hard to work for. She also was unreasonably demanding. I learned later she was diagnosed as mentally disordered.
No magician training. Attorney comes at paralegal, demands s/he produce something s/he needs urgently and produce it NOW. Paralegal knows who to contact to obtain it – however – that source is not overly cooperative in providing it. Paralegal finds s/he must jump through numerous hoops to obtain what attorney is demanding. In the meantime, attorney confronts paralegal as to the whereabouts of what s/he is demanding. Paralegal responding that s/he is working on it is never good enough: attorney does not want to hear about paralegal’s efforts to expedite receipt of the something.
Deadlines. Litigation shops must comply with many court-ordered deadlines. Some of the work requiring compliance with these deadlines was very involved court documents and could take hours or days to finish.
Now you might say start working on the documents sooner. Sure – I recall one case with an involved medical history. I knew I would need a lot of time to complete its expert witnesses disclosure. I tried starting on it two months before it was due. In the interim, I encountered interruptions and roadblocks that greatly frustrated my efforts. Never mind the fact the attorney was preparing to take a three-week vacation of a lifetime and before he left he wanted to see a draft of the disclosure which he ordinarily would not have needed until much later. I worked something like three straight 12-hour days analyzing pages and pages of medical records to get the draft to him. I got it to him the day before he was leaving. And guess what? He did not look at the draft before he left. Figures.
Frustrating. I reincorporate my comments about “busy” and “stressful” as if fully set forth herein.
Paralegals are people pleasers. They take pride in producing quality work, and serving their attorneys by striving to make their jobs easier and giving them what they want when they need it. Unfortunately, my experience is attorneys are the biggest stumbling blocks to paralegals who strive to please them. That frustrates conscientious paralegals.
The mentally disordered attorney was shareholder of the firm. She would lay out detailed instructions to the associate attorneys and paralegals for completing a project, and leave them alone to do the work. She provided no supervision.
As the associates and paralegals were about to complete the project and it neared deadline, she checked in. They had followed her detailed instructions to the letter.
At the eleventh hour, shareholder told them they had to redo the project. There was little time to redo it. They would have to put in long days, nights and weekends to redo the project. As one of the experienced attorneys put it, the baseball had been pitched. The project rounded third and was headed for home. Now, shareholder demanded the baseball be repitched.
The attorney in the other firm was anal about upholding deadlines – he once boasted to me he had never missed a deadline.
A court rule mandated that parties exchange initial disclosures thirty days after a case was at issue. Attorney had instructed me to affix a stickie with the deadline in large numbering on my draft and put it and the file on his desk.
For one case, I would be out of the office on a trip the day disclosures were due. The attorney knew I would be out that day.
I came in over the weekend to prepare a draft. I put the sticky with the deadline on the draft. I placed the draft and file on his desk as instructed. I expected attorney would return the draft with corrections on time so we could put it in final form and tender our disclosures to opposing counsel before deadline and before I left.
You can guess what happened next, or did not happen.
I returned from my trip and the draft and file were still on his desk, untouched. I was very frustrated. I had held up my end of the bargain by providing the draft days before deadline. He did not hold up his end by reviewing the draft so we could get our disclosures out the door on time before I was leaving.
Paralegals very much depend on the kindness of others to do their jobs. If others’ kindness is not forthcoming, their jobs and workweeks become all the more difficult.
Paralegals are resourceful people but cannot always pull rabbits out of their hats, especially on demand by attorneys. That makes their workweeks stressful.
Paralegals and attorneys must work together and appreciate each other’s roles for their relationships to be fruitful and succeed. Attorneys tend to think the world revolves around them and their workloads matter most. They do not consider or simply don’t care that their paralegals also have big workloads and it’s all work for them.
In my experience, attorneys have little appreciation for the lengths their paralegals will go to serve them: they see it as an entitlement and don’t want to hear it if their paralegals tell them. Attorneys often throw up impediments that make their paralegals’ jobs that much harder and aggravates the stress they are under already.
These things and much more make the average work week for a paralegal busy, stressful and frustrating.
