What does it cost to hire a paralegal in the UK?

A paralegal on Reed's advertised average salary of £30,629 costs a UK employer £35,205 a year before recruitment. On top of the salary the employer pays National Insurance at 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year, a pension contribution of at least 3% of qualifying earnings and 5.6 weeks of paid holiday. Reed's average comes from 1,033 live adverts, read on 3 October 2026; the Office for National Statistics puts the full-time median for the occupation group that lists paralegals at £35,507 (Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2025, SOC 2020 group 2419).

How much is a paralegal paid, and why do the figures differ?

The ONS has no group for paralegals alone. In its 2020 classification "paralegal" sits in group 2419, legal professionals not elsewhere classified, with conveyancers, in-house counsel and patent attorneys. Its full-time median in the 2025 survey (table 14.7a, provisional, released 23 October 2025) is £35,507 and its mean £65,429, which shows how much well-paid counsel is in it. "Paralegal assistant" and "legal assistant" sit in group 3520, legal associate professionals, median £34,662. Neither is a clean reading of a small firm's pay. Reed's figure is an average of the adverts on its site on the day it is read, so it moves: on 3 October 2026 it was £30,629, in a range from £28,424 to £35,915. The National Careers Service, on GOV.UK, gives £20,000 for a starter to £40,000 with experience. The Reed figure is the nearest to what a small firm will see on an advert; the arithmetic below uses it.

What does an employer pay on top of the salary?

• Employer National Insurance. For 2026 to 2027 the employer pays 15% of earnings above the secondary threshold of £5,000 a year: £3,844 on £30,629. A firm with a small total National Insurance bill can set the Employment Allowance of £10,500 against it.

• Pension. Under automatic enrolment the employer pays at least 3% of qualifying earnings, the band between £6,240 and £50,270 a year: £732 on £30,629.

• Holiday. 5.6 weeks a year, 28 days for a five-day week; the employer may count bank holidays within it.

• Recruitment. The CIPD's 2026 Resourcing and talent planning report puts the median cost per hire at £2,000 for employees below senior management, counting in-house time, advertising, agency fees and onboarding. It is a survey median from a small sample (223 employers, estimates accurate to within 20%), so a firm that goes straight to an agency is paying a fee the median only partly reflects.

Salary, employer National Insurance and the minimum pension come to £35,205 a year; with recruitment at the CIPD median, £37,205 in year one. Many paralegals are working towards qualification, so plan for the seat to change hands and for the recruitment cost to come round again. The same sum for any other post is in what it costs to employ someone in the UK.

Can AI do part of a paralegal's job?

The National Careers Service lists the job: research and draft legal documents, handle a caseload and give clients legal information, interview clients and witnesses, go to court. That is billable work, and why the hire is worth making. In a small firm the paralegal also takes the new enquiry, runs the names through the conflict search, chases the client for ID and the signed client care letter, chases the other side for what is owed, and reminds the client that the bill is unpaid. None of it is on the careers page. All of it arrives with every matter, and it is left until six o'clock, when the caseload is done.

An AI worker has a written job, a fee earner who approves its work and a monthly review. In a law firm the written, repeated work around a matter is what it can be given. Two parts of it take the paralegal's evening, chasing the signed client care letter, the ID evidence and the documents a file still waits for (chasing clients for documents), and reminding clients of unpaid bills on your schedule (invoice and payment chasing). The intake, inbox and diary work is set out in what it costs to hire a legal secretary. Each action waits for the fee earner's confirmation unless the firm has set a standing instruction for routine ones. Letters, terms and anything about a conflict always wait.

What stays with the paralegal and the solicitor?

The caseload of research, drafting, interviewing, court and legal information to the client stays with the paralegal. Whether a match is a conflict, and whether the firm acts, are a solicitor's under the Code of Conduct of the SRA, which regulates solicitors in England and Wales. The client and matter risk assessment under the Money Laundering Regulations, which the SRA says should ideally be completed by the person handling the matter, stays with that person and the MLRO, whatever the agent has gathered. Client money is never touched, the phone is a person's, and the agent never tells an enquirer their legal position.

Should you hire a paralegal?

Start from the matters coming in rather than the hours. If the firm needs another fee-earning pair of hands, hire the paralegal and give the chasing to an AI worker, so that the paralegal's day is paralegal work. If what it needs is somebody to open matters, chase evidence and keep files complete, that is written, repeated work with a fee earner's approval at each step, and the hire can wait. How AI staff compare with hiring an administrator and what it costs to hire an administrator ask the same question of an admin post. The wider case is in how to scale a business without hiring more staff, and what an AI worker is explains the term. Our starting price is on the homepage only.

In a law firm an AI worker would take the chasing, written down as a job and agreed with you before anything is built, so that the paralegal you hire would spend the day on the caseload. Where the seat you are about to fill is mostly chasing to keep files complete, talk to our agent.