Does your job count as QWE?

If you're staring at your job description trying to work out whether it counts toward qualifying work experience, here's the short version: QWE isn't about your job title. It's about whether the work develops the competencies the SRA expects of a newly qualified solicitor, and whether a solicitor or COLP is willing to confirm that at the end.

That test applies the same way whether you're a paralegal, a law clinic volunteer, or working in-house. No role is automatically in or automatically out. This post covers how the test actually works, who can sign it off, and which common roles tend to qualify in practice.

The real test: competencies, not job titles

The SRA doesn't publish a list of approved job titles for QWE. Qualifying work experience is defined by what the work actually involves: genuine legal work that helps you develop the competencies a solicitor needs.

That's a deliberately open definition, and it's the source of most confusion. A "paralegal" role at one firm might involve real drafting, client contact, and legal research. The same title at another firm might be almost entirely administrative. Same title, very different QWE value.

So the honest starting question isn't "does my job title count?" It's "does the work I actually do touch on the skills a solicitor needs to demonstrate?" Legal research, drafting, client meetings, and substantive support on live matters are all strong signals. Purely clerical work is much harder to argue for, even inside a law firm.

Where the work can happen

One of the bigger changes from the old training contract system is that QWE doesn't have to come from a law firm. It can be gained in a law firm role with genuine legal content, an in-house legal team, a local authority or public sector legal department, a university-run law clinic, or certain voluntary and pro bono legal work.

The common thread across all of these is the same competency test. Where the work happens matters less than what it actually involves.

Up to four organisations

You can build your two years of QWE across a maximum of four different organisations. Moving between roles within the same organisation still counts as one organisation, so the cap is about employers, not job changes.

In practice this gives you room to combine, say, a year at a high-street firm with a stretch in-house and a period of law clinic work, and still have a fourth organisation in reserve. It also means one disappointing placement doesn't sink your QWE. If the legal content turns out to be thin, you can move on and build the rest of your two years elsewhere.

Who can actually sign off your QWE

At the end of your QWE, a solicitor or a Compliance Officer for Legal Practice (a COLP) needs to confirm that your experience meets the SRA's requirements. This is the part people often underestimate.

A few practical points on sign-off:

• It doesn't need to be a partner, or someone senior. Any solicitor or COLP who can genuinely assess your work can do it, and they don't need to hold a current practising certificate to confirm it.
• It doesn't need to be the same person for the whole two years. If you've worked across multiple organisations, you'll typically need confirmation covering each stretch.
• The person confirming your experience is putting their name to a statement that you developed the right competencies, so they need real visibility of what you did, not just a vague sense that you "worked in the legal team."

This is why record-keeping matters more than most candidates expect. If you can't show what you worked on and which competencies it touched, sign-off becomes a harder conversation two years later, especially once you've left that organisation.

Roles that commonly qualify

None of these are guaranteed, since it still comes down to the actual content of the work, but these shapes of role most often clear the competency test:

• Paralegal roles with real file responsibility: drafting, research, correspondence, and client contact, rather than pure admin support.
• In-house legal assistant roles, supporting live legal work rather than generalist business support.
• Law clinic placements, particularly university-run clinics that give students supervised client-facing legal work.
• Local authority legal department roles, including graduate roles that involve casework.
• Volunteering with legal charities or advice services, where the work is genuinely legal and appropriately supervised.
• Training contracts, which still satisfy QWE. A training contract is simply one route to the same two-year total, not a separate requirement.

Weaker claims tend to involve roles with "legal" in the title but no real legal content, very short placements that never move past shadowing, or situations where nobody senior enough is willing to sign off, even if the work itself was reasonable.

If you're unsure whether a specific role would count, the safest move is to ask early, rather than working two years on an assumption and finding out at the end that sign-off doesn't go the way you expected. Checking the SRA's current QWE guidance directly is worth doing for anything borderline.

It doesn't need to be continuous or in order

QWE can be built up in stages, with gaps in between, and doesn't need to happen in any particular order relative to SQE1 and SQE2. Work experience from during a degree, a gap year, or a role you took before you'd decided to pursue the SQE can still count, as long as it meets the competency test and someone can confirm it later.

That flexibility is useful, but it puts more of the planning and record-keeping burden on you. If you're trying to line up QWE against SQE study on a calendar, a free SQE study planner can help you see how work hours, study hours, and the two-year QWE clock fit together.

Who's exempt

If you're already a qualified lawyer in another jurisdiction, you're exempt from the QWE requirement. In practice this exemption follows automatically once you've added your jurisdiction and qualification details to your mySRA profile, though it's still worth checking your specific situation against current SRA guidance if anything about your background is unusual.

Where QWE fits in the bigger picture

QWE is one of three separate requirements for qualifying as a solicitor under the SQE route, alongside passing SQE1 and passing SQE2. It has no fixed cost of its own, since it's paid (or sometimes voluntary) work rather than a course. For the exam side, the SQE costs breakdown and SQE dates posts cover fees and sittings, and cohort pass rates decoded is useful context. The blog has more on how the pieces fit together.

Frequently asked questions

Does my paralegal job count as QWE? It can, if the work genuinely involves legal tasks such as drafting, research, or client contact, and a solicitor or COLP is willing to confirm it. A paralegal title alone doesn't guarantee it.

What counts as qualifying work experience? Legal work that develops the competencies the SRA expects of a newly qualified solicitor, gained in up to four organisations, and confirmed by a solicitor or COLP. It can come from a law firm, an in-house team, a local authority, a law clinic, or certain voluntary legal work.

Can volunteering count as QWE? Yes, provided the work is genuinely legal in nature, appropriately supervised, and someone eligible is willing to confirm it. Pro bono and law clinic work are common ways candidates build part of their QWE.

Who can sign off my QWE? A solicitor of England and Wales or a COLP. It doesn't need to be a senior partner, doesn't require them to hold a current practising certificate, and doesn't need to be the same person for the whole two years if you've worked across multiple organisations.

Do I need a training contract for my job to count? No. A training contract still satisfies QWE, but it's one route among several. Paralegal work, in-house roles, law clinics, and other qualifying legal work all count under the same test.

The honest answer to "does my job count?" is usually "check the actual content of the work, and ask the person who'd need to sign it off." Job titles are a rough guide at best. What decides it is whether the work builds the right competencies, and whether someone can put their name to that when your two years are up.