Diversity of the judiciary: Legal professions, new appointments and current post-holders - 2023 Statistics

Question 1

1. Main Points

Accepted Answer

1.1 Sex


Women remain generally well represented in the legal professions and judiciary.	Women constitute 40% of barristers, 53% of solicitors, 77% of Chartered Legal Executives, and 42% of all judges.
There is no disparity between women and men in their selection to judicial posts.	Women accounted for 50% of the eligible pool and 51% of recommendations in legal judicial selection exercises.

1.2 Ethnicity


There has been a gradual increase in the representation of ethnic minorities in the legal professions and judiciary.	In the last decade, the ethnic minority proportion of barristers increased from 13% to 16%, of solicitors from 15% to 19%, of Chartered Legal Executives from 5% to 11%, and from 7% to 11% for all judges.
There is no evidence of disparity for ethnic minority candidates in legal judicial selection exercises.	Across all legal exercises in 2022-2023, ethnic minority candidates accounted for 16% of the eligible pool and 16% of recommendations.

1.3 Professional background


There is evidence of disparity for solicitors in legal judicial selection exercises compared to barristers.	For all legal exercises in 2022-2023, solicitors (48%) made up more applications than barristers (35%) - but constituted a smaller percentage of the recommendations (35% compared to 50%).
Tribunal judges are twice as likely to have a non-barrister background than court judges	Overall, 32% of court judges and 61% of tribunal judges were from non-barrister backgrounds (mostly solicitors).

1.4 Judges sitting in retirement


In comparison to judges, a lower proportion of judges sitting in retirement are women or from an ethnic minority background, but a higher proportion have a non-barrister background.	Women constituted about a quarter (26%) of all judges sitting in retirement. Ethnic minorities made up about 6%. Non-barristers made up over half (55%) of judges sitting in retirement, compared to 42% for all current judges.

1.5 Non-legal Members of Tribunals


Compared with judges, a higher proportion of non-legal members are women, or from an ethnic minority background.	Of all non-legal tribunal members, women made up over a half (56%) and those with an ethnic minority background constituted 18%, compared to 42% and 11% for all judges respectively.

1.6 Magistrates


The proportions of women and ethnic minority individuals was higher amongst the magistracy than in the judiciary.	Women represented 57% of all magistrates. Ethnic minorities made up 13%.
For women, the proportion applying to join the magistracy is comparable to those in post, but for ethnic minority individuals it is considerably higher.	Women constituted 56% of the applicants to become a magistrate. Ethnic minority individuals made up nearly a quarter (24%).

Question 2

2. Statistician’s Comment

Accepted Answer

Women are generally well represented throughout the judicial career path, from the legal professions who make up the eligible pool of future candidates, through the judicial appointments process, to the current judges in post. The main exception to this is seen in the more senior roles of the court judiciary where women tend to be under-represented.

When looking at the ethnic minority groups, there is a slightly different picture where representation amongst the legal professions is in line with the general population but is lower within the judiciary. There is no evidence of disparity in the judicial appointments process from eligible pool to recommendation between ethnic minorities overall and white candidates in legal exercises over the last three years. However, looking at the specific ethnic minority groups, individuals from an Asian/Asian British or black/black British background were less likely to be recommended for appointment relative to white candidates.

There are about ten times as many solicitors as barristers, but there are six former barristers to every four former solicitors in the judiciary. This reflects the significantly lower recommendation rates for solicitor compared to barrister candidates during the judicial appointments process, although solicitor-background candidates applying for more senior roles, requiring previous judicial experience, were recommended at very similar rates to barristers.

More robust statistical methodology used this year has also shown that there is no evidence of intersectional disparity with respect to sex, ethnicity and professional background from application to recommendation in the judicial selection exercises completed in the last three years. Instead, there are significant main effects of each – where women are appointed at higher rates, but ethnic minorities and solicitors are recommended at lower rates. For ethnic minorities this is a different result than the one described above for recommendation from the eligible pool, which reflects the higher proportion of ethnic minorities who apply from the eligible pool compared to white individuals.

Representation of women and those from an ethnic minority background was higher in those posts which do not require a legal background (magistrates and non-legal tribunal members), compared to judges currently in post.

Question 3

3. Things you need to know

Accepted Answer

This is the fourth combined report bringing together diversity data on the legal professions, judicial appointments, and sitting judges and other post holders.

In this latest, edition covering 2022/23, some new information has been included for the first time. These are as follows:

Time series data for the legal professions
Magistrates recruitment data
Intersection data for Magistrates in post
Judges sitting in retirement

In addition, following an internal review of the report, a more robust approach to the methodology used for the analysis of intersectional effects of sex, ethnicity and professional background on judicial selection has been implemented. The results of this statistical analysis have now been combined with the intersectional figures for the legal professions and judicial office holders into a single separate chapter.

For the analysis of the data from the selection exercises, there are a number of terms used in the commentary that you may wish to know more about - such as ‘recommendation rate’, ‘relative rate index (RRI)’, ‘practical significance’, ‘statistical significance’ and ‘eligible pool’. A more detailed description and explanation of these terms can be found in the accompanying User’s Guide. We strongly suggest anyone who is new to these statistics read the user guide before this report.

Previous editions of this report have reported on gender and sex interchangeably. As of this year, to ensure a more accurate reflection of how most organisations collect data, the report will refer to the respondent’s sex rather than gender but noting the practices of any organisation where reporting differs.

In order to most appropriately assess the figures and trends in judicial diversity, comparisons in this publication are made against the relevant population in England and Wales, from which the legal professions and ultimately judges are derived. Here, the relevant population is defined to be those aged 25-74 in the 2021 Census general population. We also make comparisons to the Annual Population Survey’s (APS) economically active population, in order to recognise that not all members of particular demographic groups within the 25-74 age range are employed or actively looking for work.

Question 4

4. Overview of the legal professions, selection exercises and judiciary

Accepted Answer

4.1 Legal professions

The legal professions form the pool from which the candidates who wish to become judges come. Table 1.1 provides information about the sex, ethnicity and age of these professionals by experience and seniority. As at 1 April 2023, there were 17,463 barristers, 159,574 solicitors and 8,191 Chartered Legal Executives.

The varying size of the professions should be kept in mind when interpreting the figures presented throughout this publication relating to the percentage of those in different professions with various characteristics (typically there will be more solicitors than barristers or Chartered Legal Executives).

4.2 Judicial Appointments: Applications and Selections

During 2022-23 the JAC completed 36 judicial selection exercises^{[footnote 1]} (excluding senior judicial appointments), 26 for legal posts and 10 for non-legal tribunal exercises. There were a total of 7,357 applications, resulting in 1,052 recommendations for immediate appointment (s87)^{[footnote 2]}. Table 2.1 contains a full list of the exercises completed by the JAC between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023, and a detailed breakdown of the number of applications and appointments for each type of exercise run by the JAC.

Where two or more applicants are assessed as being of equal merit, the JAC can select an applicant for the purpose of increasing judicial diversity using the Equal Merit Provision (EMP) introduced by the Crime and Courts Act 2013^{[footnote 3]}. EMP can be applied at both the shortlisting and recommendation for appointment stage. For exercises reporting in the 2022/23 period, as a result of using EMP, 184 candidates were advanced to the next stage of the process at the shortlisting stage, and 25 candidates were recommended at the selection day stage^{[footnote 4]}.

Levels of experience among applicants

Judicial selection exercises have a minimum statutory level of post qualification experience (PQE). However, the actual levels of applicants’ PQE are often greater than these minimum requirements. For 2022/23, of all applicants for court and tribunal positions requiring at least 5 years’ post-qualification experience, applicants had around 17.5-19 years’ experience on average^{[footnote 5]}. Of those who applied for positions requiring at least 7 years’ of experience, applicants had around 21 years’ experience on average. More specifically:

Court positions requiring 5 years’ PQE: the average PQE of applicants was around 17-19.5 years
Court positions requiring 7 years’ PQE: the average PQE of applicants was 21 years
Tribunal positions requiring 5 years’ PQE: the average PQE of applicants was around 18-19 years
Tribunal positions requiring 7 years’ PQE: the average PQE of applicants was 20 years

Therefore, where information on the eligible pool for the legal professions are presented in the following chapters, these actual averages are used to allow a more meaningful comparison.

Comparison with previous years

This publication presents data for selection exercises which concluded during 2022-23 and does not draw comparisons with previous years. Historical comparisons can be affected by the number and type of exercises run in any given year, which can vary according to recruitment needs, and by when exercises are formally closed (before or after the report’s cut-off date of 1 April each year).

However, Table 2.5 does present figures on recommendations for appointment in those exercises where data is consistently available across the years.

4.3 Judicial office holders

Table 3.1 shows that as at 1 April 2023, by primary appointment, there were 3,483 court judges and 1,809 tribunal judges, with an additional 3,169 non-legal members of tribunals.

The overall number of court and tribunal judges has fluctuated over time, and there is no consistent pattern of increase or decrease. Since 2012 (the earliest year with data available on both courts and tribunals), the numbers of court judges (3,575 in 2012), and tribunal judges (2,060 in 2012) have both decreased.

Turnover in the judiciary tends to be relatively low, with 327 judges beginning their first appointment in 2022-23 (197 court, 130 tribunal judges) and 230 leaving in the same period (136 court, 94 tribunal).

As at 1 April 2023 there were 244 judges sitting in retirement in England and Wales.

4.4 Magistrates

There were 13,340 magistrates across England and Wales. Although an increase from last year, there has been an overall drop in the number of magistrates in recent years, decreasing by nearly a half from 25,170 since 2012. As a result of both changing workloads and working practices there was an oversupply of magistrates, and the numbers of magistrates were therefore allowed to reduce.

A new magistrates recruitment process was introduced in January 2022, and from then up to 31 March 2023 nearly 6,000 applications had been made to become a magistrate.

Question 5

5. Sex

Accepted Answer

5.1 Legal Professions

Women remain generally well represented in the legal professions, with each profession showing a gradual increase in the past decade.

For all three professions, women are less likely to be at a higher seniority level than men.

Although women are generally well represented in the legal professions as a whole, as at April 2023 there was some variation in the proportion female between the three. This ranged from barristers at 40%, to solicitors at 53%, to Chartered Legal Executives at 77%.

Table 1.2 shows that the proportion of women in all three legal profession groups has gradually increased over the last decade, with solicitors increasing five percentage points, and barristers and Chartered Legal Executives increasing four percentage points each.

Post Qualification Experience

Table 1.1 shows that men dominate senior positions across the legal professions despite gains in female representation over the past decade^{[footnote 6]}. Even though more women are entering the professions, men still tend to have greater years of experience.

Amongst barristers, half (51%) of men have 20+ years’ experience compared to a third (34%) of women; and, men are nearly three times more likely to be at a higher (King’s Counsel) seniority level than women (15% compared to 6%).
Amongst Chartered legal executives, 27% of men have 20+ years experience compared to 18% of women, and men are slightly more likely to be partners than women (19% compared to 12%).

For solicitors there is clearly an association between the rate of declaration for sex and PQE, with the lowest PQE band (0-4) only having a declaration rate of 29%. This means that analysis across the PQE bands by sex would be biased due to non-response and is therefore not included in this bulletin.

Figure 1: Representation of women in the legal professions by PQE band, April 2023^{[footnote 7]} Across all legal professions, the proportion of women is notably lower for those having 20+ years’ experience.

Figure 2: Representation of women in the legal professions by seniority, April 2023 For all three professions, the proportion of women is lower at more senior compared to less senior levels.

5.2 Judicial Appointments: Applications and Selections

Overall, there is no evidence of any disparity in legal judicial selection in 2022-23 for women relative to men when comparing recommendation rates from the eligible pool.

Overall View

Table 2.2 shows that across all legal JAC exercises in 2022-23, women^{[footnote 8]} accounted for 50% of the applications (3,238), 50% of those shortlisted (815) and 51% of the recommendations for appointment (407)^{[footnote 9]}.

These percentages suggest there was no disparity between men and women in these exercises. This is borne out by the estimated^{[footnote 10]} RRI for the eligible pool to recommendation of 1.06, which shows that overall the likelihood of success is about 6% higher for women from the eligible pool compared to men. This difference is not statistically or practically significant^{[footnote 11]}. Similarly there was no disparity between men and women in these exercises from application to recommendation (RRI of 1.04).^{[footnote 12]}

This lack of difference between men and women is also shown by their similar progressions rates in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Progression of applicants through the exercise stages by sex (all legal exercises completed in 2022-23).

Exercise-specific Analysis

In 2022-23, statistically significant sex disparity only occurs in the Fee-paid Judge of the First-tier Tribunal and Fee-paid Judge of the Employment Tribunal (England and Wales) exercise (Figure 4).

For this exercise the RRI from eligible pool to recommendation of 1.38 indicates that the odds of success for women were 38% higher than for men^{[footnote 13]}. However, the RRI value for application to recommendation was 1.21 and not statistically significant^{[footnote 14]}, meaning that that there is no evidence of disparity in success rate between men and women when looking at applicants rather than the eligible pool.

Figure 4: RRI for women compared to men, from eligible pool to recommendation (all legal exercises completed in 2022-23).

For the above figure note that statistically significant results – where the confidence interval (represented by the arms extending from each dot) does not overlap the parity line (1 on the x-axis) - are light blue. The tolerance zone is shaded grey (0.8 to 1.25); results falling within this zone are considered to represent a disparity which is not large enough to be considered practically important (and tend not to be statistically significant).

Representation percentages (Figure 5) help to show the progress of women at different stages of the selection process. In comparison to the eligible pool, the representation of women was higher at the recommendation for appointment stage for three of the ten large legal exercises, with one the same.

Please note that the lines for Fee-paid Judge of the First-tier Tribunal and Fee-paid Judge of the Employment Tribunal (FPJ FiT & ET) and Road User Charging Adjudicator (RUCA) are almost identical on the graph.

Figure 5: Representation of women at different exercise stages, by eligible pool type (5 years’ PQE, 7 years’ PQE, and Previous judicial experience) for large legal exercises completed in 2022-23.

5.3 Judicial Office Holders

Female representation among judges in post has increased over recent years, for both courts and tribunals judges.

Judges in post

Table 3.4 shows that as at 1 April 2023, women represented 37% of all court judges, 13 percentage points higher than in 2014^{[footnote 15]}, and 52% of all tribunal judges, 9 percentage points higher than in 2014 (Figure 6).

Comparing men and women in their distribution across judicial positions in courts, Table 3.1 shows that for the latest year, the distribution of female court judges across the roles above recorder was roughly equivalent to that for male judges – even though there are comparatively fewer at higher levels as a proportion of each role. Men are more likely to be recorders than women, while women are more likely to be a District Judge or Deputy District Judge compared to men.

Overall, the distribution of female tribunal judges across roles is generally similar to that for the men.

Figure 6: Proportion of court and tribunal judges that were women as at 1 April, from 2014.

For context, women account for just over half of the general population aged 25-74^{[footnote 16]} and just under half of the economically active population of England and Wales. However, as judicial roles require substantial legal experience, a direct comparison with the general population does not provide as much insight on progression in the representation of women in the judiciary as considering the makeup of the legal professions (as presented in the earlier section).

Entrants and leavers

More women entered the judiciary compared to men during 2022-23, and conversely more men left the judiciary compared to women during the same period (Figure 7).

New entrants: Table 3.1 shows that the proportion of female judges in post (8%) who were new entrants to the judiciary – those not previously holding a judicial appointment – was higher than that for males (5%) during 2022-23^{[footnote 17]} (Figure 7).

Promotions: The proportion of female judges in post who were promoted in 2022/23 was the same as that for males (2%) - although the actual numbers are fairly small and can be affected year-on-year by the mix of roles involved.

Leavers: The proportion of female judges in post (4%) who had left the judiciary during 2022/23 was slightly less than that for males (5%).

Figure 7: Representation of women among court and tribunal judges leaving and joining the judiciary, 1 April 2022 – 31 March 2023.

Patterns by type of appointment

The representation of women across the judiciary varied by appointment type and seniority (Figure 8).

In the courts, women made up 30% of judges in more senior posts (High Court and above). The highest level of representation for women was among the County Court judges (District Judges and Deputy District Judges) at 45%.

In tribunals, women accounted for more than half (53%) of the most senior roles (Presidents)^{[footnote 18]}.

Figure 8: Representation of women among court and tribunal judges by appointment, 1 April 2023.

Patterns by region

The representation of women across the court judiciary also varies considerably by region, from 31% in Wales, to 43% in the South East. Variations may reflect the nature of the appointments in the different regions, as well as the underlying regional make-up of both the general population and the eligible pool. Further information is available in table 3.2.

Question 6

6. Ethnicity

Accepted Answer

6.1 Legal Professions

There has been a gradual increase in the representation of ethnic minorities in all three legal professions over the last decade.

Representation of individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds is lower at the more senior levels for each of the legal professions.

Overall Picture in Each Profession

Over the last decade, there has been a gradual increase in the representation of ethnic minorities amongst the three legal professions. For barristers the ethnic minority proportion increased three percentage points to 16%, for solicitors it was four percentage points to 19%, and for Chartered Legal Executives it doubled from 5% to 11%.

For the latest year, as at 1st April 2023, for all three professions the proportion of individuals self-identifying as ethnic minority was broadly in line with those of the relevant working population (25-74) in England and Wales from the 2021 Census.^{[footnote 19]}

The main variation was in the representation of Asian or Asian British ethnicity which was higher for solicitors compared to the working population (12% compared to 9%), and in the representation of individuals of mixed ethnicity which was twice as much in barristers as for the working population (4% compared to 2%).