Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) is increasing salaries for its newly qualified lawyers in London to £135k.  

The figure equates to a 12.5% increase on the firm’s current rate of £120k and sees it pull away from the likes of Simmons & Simmons and Travers Smith, both of which pay their NQs £120k according to Legal Cheek, to match Herbert Smith Freehills and Hogan Lovells.

The rise will come into force on 1 April and follows the firm’s annual benchmarking review. NQ lawyers who achieve the required hours have the potential to earn between £143.1k and £189k, inclusive of base salary and performance bonus. 

NRF has also raised salaries throughout the London associate pay scale to remain market competitive at all levels, the firm said in a statement. 

“We believe this change will allow us to continue to attract the best talent in the market, as well as ensuring our high-performing lawyers at all levels are rewarded competitively for their contribution,” the firm added. 

NRF’s pay bump comes amid an ongoing junior salary war that has seen repeated rounds of pay rises on both sides of the Atlantic. In September Slaughter and May became the last of the UK Magic Circle firms to increase NQ pay from £125k to £150k, Freshfields, Linklaters, Clifford Chance and A&O Shearman all having ushered in identical rises in May. 

In June, City stalwart MacFarlanes said it was upping NQ pay to £140k – making it the highest-paying UK firm behind the Magic Circle, while in July a clutch of firms boosted their rates, including Herbert Smith Freehills (£135k), DLA Piper (£110k) and HFW (£100k). 

Despite the pay rises, the Magic Circle are nowhere near the top of the London market, which is dominated by Big Law firms that benefit from being anchored in the lucrative US market. Quinn Emanuel and Gibson Dunn are at the top of the pile with an eye-watering £180k rate, with Paul Weiss, which is launching a new UK training contract, set to pay the inaugural cohort the same amount upon qualification. 

Those firms are followed by an elite group of US outfits that pay £175k or more. Sullivan & Cromwell pays its NQs £177k, while Goodwin, Sidley Austin and White & Case have all recently increased their rates to £175k.