Down from over 70% pre-Covid
Exclusive Legal Cheek data shows that the bar’s most sought-after chambers continue to draw heavily from Oxbridge talent, but there are signs that the elite university duo’s grip on pupillage places is starting to loosen.
A deep dive into the educational backgrounds of the five most junior tenants at 50 of the country’s leading sets reveals a clear picture of how elite chambers are recruiting and who’s actually getting through the door.
At the very top end of Oxbridge recruitment, the five most junior barristers at six leading commercial and chancery sets all studied at Oxford or Cambridge at undergraduate level.
Across 34 out of 50 sets on our Chambers Most List 2026, Oxbridge graduates made up the majority of those progressing from pupillage into tenancy, with at least three of the five most recent tenants at each set coming from the two elite universities.
Overall, we looked at close to 250 junior barristers across 50 sets to see how many had completed their undergraduate degree at Oxbridge. Our research shows that 143 of them — or 58% — are Oxbridge alumni. While this still accounts for more than half of all juniors surveyed, it represents a notable drop from pre-Covid levels of as high as 77%, and likely reflects the efforts some sets have made to broaden access and recruit from a wider range of universities, including through Legal Cheek‘s Virtual Pupillage Fairs.
The tendency to recruit from Oxbridge broadly aligns with practice area: sets operating in the most lucrative fields — company law, financial regulation, tax, and private international disputes — show the highest proportions of Oxbridge grads. By contrast, sets with broader practices spanning mixed civil, public and specialist areas display a wider spread of educational backgrounds, including larger numbers from Russell Group and other universities.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, chambers that recruit predominantly from Oxbridge also tend to offer some of the higher pupillage awards.
Which chambers recruit the most Oxbridge grads? 🎓
*Figure is for the five most junior members of chambers; does not include postgraduate studies.
You can view everything pupillage-related on our 2026 Legal Cheek Chambers Most List
‘Figure is for the five most junior members of chambers; *DOES NOT* include postgraduate studies.’
Ah, right. Yes. Because the BCL is famously not conducive to a career at the commercial and chancery bar.
It is generally recognised – with exceptions noted, of course – that those admitted to undergraduate studies at an Oxbridge college are more likely to exhibit the intellect and academic prowess associated with Oxbridge than those who did their undergraduate degrees at a lesser university.
You daft sod, there is no such college called ‘Oxbridge’. Bless your soul, atleast you tried
I must say, I do find LC’s attitude of excluding post-graduate studies a bit of a difficult one to swallow insofar as a fair reflection of the Bar’s Oxbridge-itis is concerned.
As Dilly notes, that therefore excludes the circa-£35,000.00 BCL.
Of course, any given student with an LLB (as opposed to a BA in Jurisprudence) who finds themselves with a golden ticket onto the BCL and can find the funds for it is obviously impressive enough to warrant a place at a top Chambers. All the more so if they can plead their case for scholarship funding.
The same can be said for the comparatively less common LLM(Cantab) and M/D.Phil, which seem to rear their own heads every now and then on the CVs of pupils and early tenants at these chambers.
It is wondered whether or not these statistics would up-tick were LC to review its audit with that in mind.
Thank you. It have been bugging me for a long time that they downplay the true educational backgrounds.
And even then the undergrads will typically be Oxbridge adjacent.
Try getting into the BCL without having stufied at oxbridge undergrad.
Exclusive 48% of junior barristers are not grads from Oxbridge
I think we can quite confidently exclude you as a junior barrister and/or grad from Oxbridge.
As well as excluding them as someone who can count…
Yeah that’s quite sad
a fair chunk of that 48% will have the BCL
100% of all barristers believe they are special
A significant proportion of those who did not attend Oxbridge in your sample are from overseas and would have done their undergrad in an overseas university (usually Australia or Singapore). If you confined this to UK-origin barristers only, the ratio would go up.
Talent is talent. Any barrister is able to tell you that a bright pupil from University of Nowhere will out-do a lame duck from Oxbridge, and yet Chambers will still prefer drawing from the only two universities in Britain to cling onto the last vestiges of the old boy’s club.
It’s abysmal frankly. But no doubt one of that elite few will turn up in this comment section to defend, saying how it’s common sense to hire from the “best” universities.
Omitting post-graduate studies was a major misstep on your part, Legal Cheek.
I’d also like to know how many studied LAW at undergraduate. The old saying goes “those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach” but perhaps “those who can, do. Those who can’t, get on to History or English Lit instead then do a GDL” might do just as well. Perhaps not as snappy?
Oxbridge makes students write two essays a week.
At other universities, most write one essay a month. Other universities could choose to give their students more work, but they don’t.
That fact is what makes Oxbridge graduates more desirable to pupillage panels.
This is so true. The bottom line is that people in these chat forums are daft. Students who write essays twice a week at Cambridge or Oxford makes them a better candidate to become a barrister, as writing essays twice a week is exactly what the puppillage panel is seeking and writing essays is what the barrister profession seeks…what a load of bo*llocks.
We’re not impressed. A mediocre lawyer from Oxbridge is still mediocre and should not be given advantages just because he wrote oh so many essays at undergrad.
They are not. Most oxbridge students still dont get into the commercial bar. It’s more that the few outstanding students who do are disproportionately oxbridge, because oxbridge has more outstanding students. Which you can tell by having any thoughtful conversation with one of them vs even UCL / LSE clearly not on the same level on average.
Oxbridge cope
If the majority are from oxbridge – then it also follows that oxbridge continues to out produce all other other universities in the talents of lying, deceiving, thieving and fraud. It’s also a known fact that oxbridge graduates have no creativity at all – they spend their entire lives stealing other people ideas and repackaging them and selling them as their own – total twits. I would say the status quo is the same for Harvard grads – Bill Gates would be a good example. They don’t churn out grads they churn out criminals.
Oxbridge is no longer the marker of talent it once was now they focus more on DEI tick boxes than talent and A levels cannot differentiate between the best and the merely quite good. There a many excellent candidates from the better public schools who are being excluded unjustly and therefore sets will inevitably have to cast the net wider.
Wrong .Just stop badgering about Oxbridge. We are absolutely the best and we know it, so do you.
Eton Rifles and all that…….
Not very representative of the non-London bar