Guideline hourly rates 2026: fee-earner rates explained

Guideline hourly rates are the figures the courts in England and Wales publish as a starting point for assessing a fee-earner's recoverable costs, by grade (A to D) and location band. From 1 January 2026 they range from £142 an hour for a grade D fee-earner outside London to £579 for a grade A fee-earner in London 1. They guide judges; they do not cap what a client agrees to pay.

This post sets out the 2026 table, explains what the rates are for, and then covers the question the usual summaries skip: how a firm should use them when it is not in front of a judge. It is part of our series on what a fee-earner is. It is not costs advice. On a live assessment, speak to a costs lawyer.

What are the guideline hourly rates for 2026?

The GOV.UK table in effect from 1 January 2026 is:

• Grade A: London 1 £579, London 2 £422, London 3 £319, National 1 £295, National 2 £288.
• Grade B: London 1 £393, London 2 £327, London 3 £262, National 1 £247, National 2 £247.
• Grade C: London 1 £305, London 2 £276, London 3 £209, National 1 £201, National 2 £200.
• Grade D: London 1 £210, London 2 £157, London 3 £146, National 1 £142, National 2 £142.

The grades are defined on the same page: grade A is solicitors and legal executives with over 8 years' experience; grade B, over 4 years; grade C, other solicitors or legal executives and fee-earners of equivalent experience; grade D, trainee solicitors, paralegals and other fee-earners. The finer points of who falls where are in fee-earner grades A to D explained.

GOV.UK lists which areas sit in each band. Check the page rather than a copy of it: the rates change, and a figure from a blog post (including this one) can be out of date by the time you read it.

What are guideline hourly rates actually for?

Summary assessment. When a court decides costs at the end of a hearing or a fast-moving application, the judge needs a quick, consistent reference for what an hour of each fee-earner's time should cost. The rates provide it.

The Guide to the Summary Assessment of Costs is explicit about their status. It calls them "no more than a guide and a starting point", says they may also be a helpful starting point on detailed assessment, and says that in every case a proper exercise of judicial discretion still has to be made. It also says a rate above the guideline may be appropriate for grades A, B and C in substantial and complex litigation, where factors such as the value, complexity, urgency or importance of the matter, or an international element, justify a significantly higher rate.

Are guideline hourly rates the maximum a solicitor can charge?

No. What a firm charges its own client is a matter for the retainer between them. The guideline rates govern what a court is likely to allow the winning party to recover from the losing party. The gap between the two is common, and it is the reason a successful client can still face a bill: the recoverable amount and the agreed amount are different numbers.

That gap is also why good client care matters. A client who was told at the start that recovery is rarely complete, and why, is a client who does not feel misled at the end. Our series on client intake covers what to say at that first conversation.

What happens if a firm claims more than the guideline rate?

It will need to justify the difference. The Guide says the rate should not be decided by locality or postcode alone, and that a paying party's own statement of costs may help show what comparable firms charge. The practical checklist before claiming above guideline:

• Is the grade itself defensible, based on qualification and relevant experience, not job title?
• Is the matter genuinely substantial or complex on the factors the Guide lists?
• Was the work done at the right level, or would a more junior grade have done it?
• Can you point to comparable rates, including the other side's?

If the answer to any of those is weak, expect the rate to come back towards the guideline.

How should a firm use the rates outside court?

Most firms never have a summary assessment, yet the rates still find their way into pricing. Used carefully, they are a useful external reference. Used carelessly, they become a ceiling or a floor they were never meant to be. Four sensible uses:

• A sense check on your own rates. If your grade C rate is far above the band for your area, you should know why. Maybe the work justifies it. If it does not, clients who read the table will ask.
• Explaining the recovery gap to a litigation client, before it becomes a surprise.
• Internal costing of fixed fees. A fixed fee is priced on the time it takes at the grades that do it. The guideline table is a neutral way to sanity check the cost of that time, alongside your own cost per hour.
• Budgeting. Costs budgets in litigation are built from grade and hours, so it helps to know where the court's starting point sits.

And two uses to avoid:

• Setting your private-client rates by copying the table. The table reflects what courts allow for litigation. It does not know your overheads, your market or your client base.
• Treating the table as a target. A fee-earner billed at the guideline rate but writing off a third of their time is earning less than one at a lower rate who bills it all. Fee-earner utilisation explains why realisation matters as much as rate.

A worked example: the recovery gap

A hypothetical matter with invented figures, to show why the difference between charged and recoverable matters:

• A grade B solicitor in a National 1 area charges her client £300 an hour under the retainer. The 2026 guideline for grade B, National 1 is £247.
• She records 40 hours on the claim. At her agreed rate that is £12,000.
• The client wins and is awarded costs. If the court allowed the guideline rate on all 40 hours, recoverable fees would be £9,880.
• Before any reduction for hours, the client is already £2,120 short on fees.

Now add the part the rate table cannot show. Suppose 6 of those 40 hours were short client status calls that the court treats as not reasonably incurred, or that the firm itself decided not to bill. The client's recovery falls, or the firm writes the time off. Either way, rate was not the whole story; time spent on low-value work was.

How do you compare the guideline rate with your own cost per hour?

The guideline table tells you what a court may allow. It says nothing about what an hour costs your firm to produce. That second number is the one that decides whether a rate, or a fixed fee, makes money, and most small firms have never worked it out per fee-earner. A simple method:

• Take the fee-earner's full annual cost: salary, employer's National Insurance, pension, practising certificate and insurance share, plus their share of overheads such as rent, systems and support staff.
• Estimate realistic chargeable hours, not contracted hours. Use last year's recorded chargeable time, less time written off.
• Divide cost by realistic chargeable hours. That is the break-even cost of one billed hour.

A hypothetical example with invented figures: a grade C solicitor costs the firm £78,000 a year all in, and last year recorded 1,100 chargeable hours of which 1,000 were billed. Her break-even is £78 an hour. At the 2026 grade C guideline for National 1 (£201) there is a healthy margin. But if 300 of those billed hours had instead been lost to unrecorded calls and interruptions, her break-even would rise to over £111, without anyone having changed a rate.

The guideline rate is the visible number. Break-even cost per billed hour is the one that moves quietly. Your accountant can help you build the cost side properly; this is a sketch, not financial advice.

Do guideline rates matter for fixed fee pricing?

Indirectly. A fixed fee is still paid for with fee-earner time, and the guideline table is one neutral reference for what that time is worth by grade. When pricing a fixed fee, list the steps, estimate the hours at each grade, and check the result against both your own cost per hour and the guideline rate for those grades. If a fee only works when every matter runs perfectly, it does not work. Our sibling post on how fixed fees work goes into this in more detail.

How are the rates updated?

The rates are published on GOV.UK, which records each update, and the current table took effect on 1 January 2026. Rather than rely on a figure copied into a precedent, a template or a blog, link to the GOV.UK page from your own internal pricing notes so everyone reads the current version.

What do guideline rates tell you about fee-earner time?

Mostly, that time has a very visible price. Every grade A hour in London 1 has a court-published starting value of several hundred pounds. When that hour is spent taking a new enquiry's details, answering "any news?", or chasing a missing document, the table makes the cost of the interruption easy to see, even though nobody will ever bill it.

That is the thinking behind how we built WasilX. Cam, our AI Engagement Coordinator, takes calls on the firm's line at any hour, says it is AI, asks the firm's own qualifying questions, books the call back and sends the firm a summary. Each fee-earner's personal assistant covers their calls in court and drafts matter updates for the fee-earner to approve. If you would like to see it on your own line, we can talk it through. For the pricing side of the firm, see law firm pricing strategies and our sibling post on setting fee-earner targets.

Frequently asked questions

What are the guideline hourly rates for 2026? From 1 January 2026, GOV.UK lists rates from £142 an hour for grade D in National 1 and 2 up to £579 for grade A in London 1, with grades B and C and the London 2, London 3 and National bands in between.

Are guideline hourly rates the maximum a solicitor can charge? No. They are a starting point for courts assessing recoverable costs. What a firm charges its own client is agreed in the retainer and can be higher.

What is London 1 for guideline hourly rates? The highest-rate location band. GOV.UK lists the areas that fall into each band; check the page itself rather than a copy, as bands and rates are updated.

Can a court allow more than the guideline rate? Yes. The Guide to the Summary Assessment of Costs says a higher rate may be appropriate for grades A, B and C in substantial and complex litigation, depending on factors such as value, complexity, urgency and any international element.

Do guideline hourly rates apply to non-contentious work? They were written for assessing costs in litigation. Firms doing non-contentious work often use them as a reference point, but they are not a tariff for that work.