Jamie Hilder, Senior Business Manager and Degree Apprenticeships Lead at Queen Mary University of London

This piece is kindly sponsored by Queen Mary University of London. Queen Mary is pleased to contribute to the work of Inclusie Club, helping to drive inclusion in the legal sector and open up varied career pathways, by keeping resources like this newsletter free for aspiring legal professionals and Early Talent teams.

Q: Thank you so much for chatting to us, Jamie. First, can you tell us a little about what paralegal and solicitor apprenticeships are, and why both employers and students might be interested in them?

For individuals from all backgrounds seeking an affordable route into a career in the legal sector, paralegal

and solicitor apprenticeships are a great option, giving you the chance to work at a top employer and study in parallel. You’ll typically work four days a week and study on the fifth, so you gain your LLB degree and a route to qualification with zero student debt, while building your workplace skills from day one!

For employers such as law firms and in-house teams, apprenticeships are also a great way to attract talent, as many market-leading businesses have found. Your Apprenticeship Levy contributions can fund your apprentices’ education in full, giving them an “earn while you learn” pathway and a debt-free degree, while you focus on supporting them in the role.  By offering such roles, employers have the chance to make a tangible difference, at a critical time when we have almost one million young people outside education, employment or training, and with the Government's Milburn review set to place even greater emphasis on youth opportunity.

In the legal sector, there are options: employers can offer the two-year Paralegal Apprenticeship, or a longer pathway that lets apprentices gain a degree and qualify as a solicitor.

Q: Why did Queen Mary want to develop this “degree apprenticeship” model?

We’re an unusual university in a way: a top Russell Group university, with a Law School ranked among the best in the world. We attract talented students, but we also have a core social mission to create opportunity for all, which is why we care about creating degree apprenticeship routes.

I’ve worked here for many years and led these programmes, and it’s been so rewarding to see them create opportunity for everyone. I love our incredibly diverse student base, and we’re proud to have been ranked a top university for social mobility for several years by the Sutton Trust, and again recently by the Social Mobility Commission.

Degree apprenticeships, which offer debt-free access to a Russell Group degree, are a key part of our strategy to open up the legal profession to all. Since 2015, we have pioneered apprenticeship programmes with employers such as PwC, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Amazon, and we were the first Russell Group university to do so.

Q: Now you’re offering a Paralegal and Solicitor degree apprenticeship route. What’s different about the Queen Mary offer?

We’re really excited about the new Law School offering in our “Academy for Professional Legal Education”, which launches for apprentice roles starting from September 2027. For employers who partner with us, you can advertise paralegal or solicitor apprentice roles in your law firm or in-house team, with a real point of difference: if apprentices choose to come to you, they get the following (from Queen Mary):

• a top Russell Group law degree, not available through any other law degree apprenticeship provider;

• a full “student experience” in Year 1 on our London campus, with dedicated student support and accommodation; and

• face-to-face, day-release learning from our top faculty, who are experts in their fields and include many former legal practitioners.

We’re delighted to be partnering with leading legal apprenticeship body City Century, and a number of legal sector employers are already on board as we prepare for the September 2027 launch. We’d love to welcome apprentices from in-house legal teams into our cohort too!

You can read more about the offering here.

Thank you, Jamie, for putting together this piece. It’s brilliant to see more routes into law opening up and legal apprenticeships growing in popularity every year. If you’re a law firm or in-house team keen to find out more, Jamie would love to hear from you at [email protected].