A Year in Numbers: Scottish Legal Recruitment in 2025

1,006 lawyers moved jobs in Scotland in 2025. That's not a typo. It's near double the 560 moves recorded in 2024, and it tells you a lot about where solicitor recruitment in Scotland is heading.

Whether you're watching the market, planning your next move, or tracking talent for your team, here's the full picture.

Where the Moves Happened

Edinburgh led the way in legal vacancies Scotland-wide, but Glasgow closed the gap. Both cities have been firing. Aberdeen showed solid activity too, and outward mobility to London remained steady, with most of those lawyers eventually coming back.

The Glasgow-Edinburgh gap is narrowing. Legal recruitment in Glasgow was up 117% year-on-year. The two cities are increasingly competing for the same pool of talent, which matters if you're hiring or considering a move between them.

On outward mobility: 49 Scots lawyers headed to London, and 33 made the return trip. Lawyers in Employment and Corporate had the most success making cross-border moves, reflecting the transferability of their practice areas. The pattern is consistent: Scotland exports talent, but most of it comes home.

Practice Area Breakdown

Commercial Property dominated movement in legal jobs Scotland-wide, but the spread across practice areas tells a more detailed story.

Data from JMC Legal's 2025 Scottish Market tracking. Niche areas including Corporate Tax and Pensions are not shown separately due to small sample sizes.

Corporate's 101 moves stood out given the wider macro environment. There was no blockbuster year for large-scale M&A, but strength in the mid-market, and consistent exit planning activity among SMEs and owner-managed businesses, kept the practice area healthier than expected.

Employment marked its fifth consecutive year of increased movement. Legislative change, a developing policy environment, and rising tribunal volumes are fuelling demand. Expect this to continue into 2026.

Pensions deserves a mention. With only 7 recorded moves, it might look quiet, but that figure represents a meaningful proportion of the qualified workforce in Scotland. High workloads in under-resourced teams are driving people out. It's a niche area to watch.

The In-House Surge

218 lawyers moved into in-house roles in 2025, almost double the 111 in 2024. This is one of the most striking shifts in legal recruitment Scotland has seen in recent years.

Of those 218 moves: 126 were lawyers stepping from private practice to in-house, 92 were lateral moves within the in-house market, and 43 lawyers made the reverse switch back to private practice.

What this means for you

If you're in private practice and considering in-house, the market is genuinely more active than it was. But competition has grown with it. Salary still trails private practice, and career progression remains a point of friction — so go in clear-eyed about the trade-offs.

Partner Movement

121 Partner-level moves took place in 2025, up from 91 in 2024. That's a 33% increase at the most senior level of solicitor recruitment in Scotland.

Partner mobility has a ripple effect. When a Partner moves, Senior Associates and Associates often follow. Some move out of loyalty. Others read the departure as a signal and start assessing their own options. Either way, lateral Partner moves reliably create wider market activity, and 2025 proved that out.

What's Driving All This Movement?

The numbers are clear. The reasons behind them are worth understanding.

New entrants with growth plans. Firms entering Scotland, including Lewis Silkin's arrival in the Employment market, have introduced direct competition for talent and pushed up activity across practice groups.

Post-merger fallout. Recent mergers left some Partners unhappy with their new firm's direction. Some chose to port their practice elsewhere rather than adapt.

Investment in Scotland as a growth market. Several national and international firms have committed to Scotland with expanded offices and a clear hiring mandate. Those seats need filling.

The ripple effect of lateral Partner moves. As covered above, Partners move, and teams follow. This has driven meaningful volume at Senior Associate and Associate level.

Cultural fit becoming a deciding factor. Some firms have shifted their focus toward higher-value, higher-fee work. That leaves lawyers whose practice is Scotland-focused feeling undervalued. They're moving to firms that treat Scotland as a distinct market, not a regional outpost.

Legal recruitment Scotland-wide has moved from active to accelerated. The data from 2025 points to a market in structural shift: more Partners moving, more lawyers going in-house, more firms competing openly for talent.

If you're a solicitor weighing your options, the conditions are as favourable as they've been in years. If you're hiring, the pool of candidates is moving but so are your competitors.

Want to know where you sit in all of this? Talk to Jules Grieve or Tilly Scott at JMC Legal, or download the full Scottish Legal Market Report for a deeper breakdown of salaries, sectors, and what's coming in 2026.