Rises in regions too
CMS has increased the salaries of its newly qualified (NQ) lawyers in London to £120,000, with regional offices and those in Scotland also seeing salary rises.
Reaching the £120,000 mark represents an increase of just under 10% from the previous NQ salary of £110,000.
Elsewhere, newly qualified lawyers in the Bristol office will also receive an uplift of nearly 10%, rising from £70,000 to £76,500. Meanwhile, NQs in Manchester, Sheffield, and Liverpool will see their salaries increase from £62,000 to £68,000 — again, just under a 10% rise.
Meanwhile, NQs in the firm’s Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow offices are also to be paid £68,000, up from £60,000 — an uplift of 13%.
Trainee pay in London remains unchanged at £50,000 in the first year and £55,000 in the second year. Rookies salaries in the Bristol office also remain the same, £43,000 rising to £45,000 in year two.
However, trainees in other regional offices will see a pay rise. In Manchester, Sheffield, and Liverpool, first-year trainees will now earn £33,000, up from £31,500. Second-year trainees in these locations will receive £35,000.
In Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow, first-year trainees will now earn £33,000 — a £5,000 increase from the previous salary of £28,000. In their second year, salaries will rise to £35,000, up £4,000 from the previous figure.
These changes bring trainee and newly qualified (NQ) pay in Scotland in line with counterparts in Manchester, Sheffield, and Liverpool.
The Legal Cheek Firms Most List 2025 shows that CMS takes on around 90 trainees each year across all its UK offices, with its London pay rise bringing it in line with Travers Smith and Simmons & Simmons.
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