The SRA Will Not Be Releasing SQE Pass Rates by Provider This Year
I’ve spoken previously about the lack of transparency regarding SQE training provider pass rates.
While it’s been nearly 5-years since the SQE was introduced, the SRA still has not shared any provider pass rate data – nor has it mandated that providers share this themselves. So, in the interim, we’ve been left with SQE training providers self-reporting their “success stats” however they’d like (and they are getting creative with it, as I wrote last year).
Until recently I was under the impression that 2026 would be the year that the SRA would FINALLY make official training provider data available. i.e. they would, at last, publish SQE1 and SQE2 pass rates by provider (as promised back in 2021).
There were 2 reasons for thinking this:
The LSB is the independent body that oversees both the SRA and the Bar Standards Board. Last year, the LSB said that “…the SRA’s failure to publish provider pass-rate data, despite it making a commitment to do so, means that SQE candidates do not have all the information they need to make informed choices. We expect the SRA to remedy this situation as soon as possible and by no later than autumn of 2025.”
If you sat either SQE1 or 2 this year, you would have been required to complete a short ‘Provider Questionnaire’ before you were able to access your exam results.
It initially appeared that the results of the questionnaires would be shared publicly. Because the SRA has previously said that “data issues” were the reason it could not release provider pass stats, the introduction of this mandatory ‘Provider Questionnaire’ made it seem that this was how the regulator was remedying its data issues (and how it was finally getting ready to publish provider pass rates info).
However, in May I learned that the information Kaplan and the SRA have been collecting, via the ‘Provider Questionnaire,’ is not being used to make provider pass rates public (or, at least it is not being used for that purpose yet).
Kaplan and the SRA confirmed that they will, however, be making the ‘Provider Questionnaires’ data available to SQE training providers themselves. Kaplan has indicated that, later this year, they will release ‘Anonymised Training Provider Reports’ to SQE course providers. Any provider preparing 10 or more students will get this report, which will contain the overall pass rates of their students.
When asked whether this information would be made public (and when) an SRA spokesperson said that this is something the SRA is “interested in doing,” but that it is “still considering how best to publish performance data” in a way that is “contextualised and appropriate.” The spokesperson said that the regulator is consulting externally about this.
The SRA did not give a timeframe for when it will be able to make SQE provider pass rates available to candidates, so the wait for provider pass rate transparency continues… likely into 2027!
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Got thoughts about this seemingly never ending delay? Let me know in the comments below!
Best,
Lawyer in London