CILEX or SQE? How the Two Routes to Qualifying Compare

If you want to practise law in England and Wales without a training contract, two routes are open: the CILEX route toward Chartered Legal Executive, and the SQE route toward solicitor. They lead to different titles, take different shapes, and suit people in genuinely different situations.

The comparison usually gets framed as a hierarchy, with solicitor at the top. That is the wrong frame. The more useful question is what each route demands of you before you start, because that is where the two diverge most sharply.

What the SQE route requires

The SRA sets four requirements to qualify as a solicitor through the SQE:

• A degree or equivalent. It can be in any subject, or an equivalent level 6 qualification.
• Passing both SQE1 and SQE2. They are separate assessments and both are required.
• Two years' qualifying work experience, full time or the equivalent.
• Suitability. Passing the SRA's background checks and meeting its suitability requirements.

The degree requirement is the one that decides the route for many people. It does not have to be a law degree, which is a genuine widening compared with the old system, but it does have to be a degree or a level 6 equivalent.

What the CILEX route requires

The CILEX route takes the opposite approach. It requires no degree. What it requires instead is that you are working in a legal setting while you study, because the qualification is built around employment rather than alongside it.

That single difference reshapes everything else. You earn throughout, you accumulate experience continuously rather than in a defined two-year block, and the constraint on your progress is finding and holding the right role rather than funding a year of study.

Our guides to what CILEX and the CPQ actually involve and what it costs and how long it takes set out the stages in detail.

The honest comparison

If you do not have a degree

The decision largely makes itself. CILEX is open to you now; the SQE route requires you to obtain a degree or level 6 equivalent first, which adds time and cost before the route even begins.

The exception worth knowing is the solicitor apprenticeship, which the SRA lists as a route to qualifying and which can accommodate people without a prior degree. Places are limited and competitive.

If you already have a degree

Here the trade is less obvious. The SQE route leads to a title with a wider set of reserved activities and, on average, a higher ceiling. The CILEX route lets you continue earning without needing to secure qualifying work experience as a separate hurdle.

The deciding factor is usually employment. If you already have a legal job and an employer willing to support study, CILEX converts that position into a qualification. If you do not, the SQE route's two years of qualifying work experience is a problem you have to solve anyway, and solving it inside a firm that will also fund SQE preparation is a stronger position than solving it alone.

If you are already working as a paralegal

Both routes are open and your existing work may count toward either. The CILEX route is designed for exactly this situation. But qualifying work experience for the SQE is broader than many people assume, and paralegal work can contribute to it.

The practical step is to establish, with your employer, what your current role would count toward under each route before choosing. Our guide to what a paralegal does and where the role leads covers that progression in more detail.

Cost and risk, which is the part most comparisons skip

The SQE route concentrates cost and risk at the front. Preparation courses are a substantial outlay, the assessments are taken in two large blocks, and a candidate who does not secure qualifying work experience has spent the money without reaching the qualification.

The CILEX route spreads cost and risk across years, because you are employed throughout and studying in stages. The compensating risk is different: if your employment ends or your employer withdraws support, progress stalls in a way that is harder to resume alone.

Neither is obviously safer. They fail in different ways, and which failure you can tolerate is a personal question rather than a general one.

The SRA has also awarded £360,000 to eleven organisations to help candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds with the cost of sitting the SQE, which is worth investigating before assuming the fee is immovable.

What each one qualifies you to do

A solicitor has a broader set of reserved legal activities available from qualification. A Chartered Legal Executive practises within a defined specialism and can extend practice rights through further steps.

In day-to-day practice, particularly in areas like conveyancing, private client and family, the work done by an experienced chartered legal executive and by a solicitor at a comparable level often overlaps substantially. The difference is more visible in career mobility between firms and in routes into partnership than it is in the work itself.

How to decide

Three questions settle it for most people.

Do you have a degree or level 6 equivalent? If not, CILEX or a solicitor apprenticeship are the realistic routes.

Do you have a legal job now? If yes, CILEX turns that into qualification without a career break. If no, the SQE route's work experience requirement is a hurdle you face regardless.

Can you absorb concentrated cost? The SQE front-loads it. CILEX spreads it but ties it to continuous employment.

What should not decide it is prestige. Both are regulated routes into legal practice, and the people who do best in either are the ones who chose the route that matched their circumstances rather than the one that sounded more impressive.

Full detail on the solicitor side is in our guide to the SQE explained.