Costs statement
16 July 2026
This statement details our costs for the financial year from 1 November 2024 to 31 October 2025 in line with the Legal Services Boards (LSB) principles of cost transparency1.
Regulated community
At 31 October 2025 we regulated 184,672 individuals including 176,972 practising solicitors, 7,568 Registered foreign lawyers, 122 Exempt European lawyers and 10 Registered European lawyers2.
This was an increase of 3.3% on the previous year.
We also regulate solicitors' firms. At 31 October 2025 there were 8,928 regulated firms, a reduction from 9,147 at 31 October 2024.
Income and expenditure
We are funded primarily from practising fee income collected from solicitors and law firms, with additional income from regulatory activities such as authorising firms to offer legal services. We also work to recover costs spent on intervening into law firms, taking disciplinary action and administering a Compensation Fund.
| SRA Funding | 2024/25 (£m) | 2023/24 (£m) |
|---|---|---|
| Practising fee income | 72.1 | 68.1 |
| Compensation Fund income | 20.1 | 15.6 |
| Education and training income | 45.3 | 36.6 |
| Other income | 4.6 | 4.7 |
| Recoveries income | 2.9 | 5.3 |
| Grants | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Total income | 145.0 | 130.4 |
| Operating expenses | -150.8 | -123.7 |
| Operating (deficit)/surplus | 5.8 | 6.7 |
Full financial statements are available on our website.
Expenditure increased significantly from 2023/24 to 2024/25. This increase is partly because of increased SQE costs, which were recovered via SQE fees, leading to the related increase in income. In addition, SRA staff related costs for the year increased as a result of a 12% increase in headcount to deliver increased activity. There was also an increase in the costs of administering the compensation fund, which were recovered from the Compensation Fund.
Practising Certificate fees 2024/25
53% of the practising certificate fees are retained by the SRA, 28% of fees fund the activities of the Law Society and 19% is collected on behalf of the LSB, LeO, FCA and SDT.
Reserves
- As at 31 October 2025 the SRA had reserves of £23.3m
Staff costs
- Our average number of full-time equivalent staff was 874 during 2024/25 (2023/24: 783).
- Overall staff costs were £53.8m in 2024/25 (2023/24: £47m)
- During 2023/24 our Chief Executive's remuneration was £420.5k (2023/24: £414.8k)
- The Chief Executive's remuneration was 9.8 times the full time equivalent median salary of the workforce which was £42,724
- Number of senior employees per each salary band (excluding the Chief Executive):
| Salary Band | 2023/24 |
|---|---|
| £225k - £230k | 1 |
| £265k - £270k | 1 |
| £275k - £280k | 1 |
Board costs
- The chair of our Board received emoluments of £105k over the financial year ending 31 October 2025 (2023/24: £105k)
- The total cost of Board member salaries and expenses in 2024/25 was £398.7k (2024/25: £354k). The costs are higher than in the previous year due to an increase in the number of in-person meetings.
- Annex 1: LSB Cost of Regulation (PDF 15 pages, 442KB)
- Regulated community statistics
- This includes salaries and allowances, bonuses, non-cash benefits and accrued pension benefits in line with HM Treasury financial reporting guidelines