Short answer: The SRA published the July 2026 SQE1 figures on 29 September 2026. 42% of candidates passed overall and 47% of first-time sitters passed, from 6,315 candidates who completed both parts. That is up slightly on July 2025 (41% and 46%) and well below January 2026 (53% and 58%).
If you sat in July, you have known your own result since 8 September. What you did not have until today is the number that puts it in context. Here is what the SRA has published, what it does not yet tell you, and what it should change about a January 2027 resit plan.
The Headline Numbers in Context
| Metric | July 2025 | January 2026 | July 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall pass rate | 41% | 53% | 42% |
| First-attempt pass rate | 46% | 58% | 47% |
| Candidates completing both parts | 5,851 | 7,863 | 6,315 |
| First-time sitters | Not published in the news item | 6,760 | 5,012 |
| Resitters | Not published in the news item | 14% of the cohort | 1,303 |
| FLK1 pass rate | 51% | 62% | In the full statistical report |
| FLK2 pass rate | 48% | 57% | In the full statistical report |
July 2026 figures from the SRA news item of 29 September 2026. Earlier figures from the SRA statistical reports for those sittings.
Three things the headline does not say on its own.
42% is a floor holding, not a recovery. July 2025 produced a 41% overall pass rate, the lowest the assessment has recorded. July 2026 came in at 42%. The first-attempt rate moved the same single point, from 46% to 47%. On the SRA's own framing these are increases, and they are real, but a one-point move across two sittings a year apart is stability rather than a rebound. The recovery story belongs to January 2026, and July has not repeated it.
The cohort shrank against January and grew against last July. 6,315 candidates completed both parts, against 7,863 in January 2026 and 5,851 in July 2025. July remains the smaller of the two annual sittings, which matters because cohort composition, not question difficulty, is where the SRA locates most of the July to January gap.
The pass mark did not move, because it never does. The SRA repeats the point in the news item: there is no pre-determined pass mark, the standard a candidate has to meet is the same at every sitting, and the mark on each paper is set independently to allow for differences in difficulty. If you are new to what that means for your own score report, scaled scores and quintiles explained covers the mechanics.
What the July Versus January Pattern Shows
This is now the clearest finding in the data, and the SRA states it directly: pass rates for the SQE have been noticeably higher for January sittings than for July sittings, by 10 to 15 percentage points in each of the last three years. July 2026 against January 2026 is an 11-point gap. July 2025 against January 2026 was 12 points.
The SRA's explanation is about who sits when, not about the papers. Candidates following different training and educational routes typically take the assessment in different sittings, and July sittings carry a higher proportion of people resitting after at least one previous failure. Resitters pass at lower rates than first-time sitters, so a July cohort with more of them produces a lower headline number even if every individual candidate performs exactly as a January candidate would.
The practical reading of that is uncomfortable but useful. The sitting you choose does not change your own odds much. The cohort you are counted in changes the headline. A first-time candidate in July 2026 faced a 47% rate, seven points below January's 58%, and part of that residual gap is preparation runway: January cohorts come out of taught courses that finish in the autumn. If you want the honest version of what the national numbers do and do not predict for one person, how hard SQE1 really is works through it.
Resitters: Roughly One in Five Passed
The SRA does not publish a headline resit pass rate, but this time it publishes enough to derive one.
1,303 of the 6,315 candidates were resitting one or both parts. 5,012 were first-time sitters. Work the arithmetic through:
- Total passes: 42% of 6,315 is about 2,652 candidates.
- First-time passes: 47% of 5,012 is about 2,356 candidates.
- Resit passes: 2,652 minus 2,356 is about 296 candidates.
- Resit pass rate: 296 out of 1,303 is about 23%.
That figure is derived from the SRA's rounded figures, so treat it as a band rather than a point. It sits in the same range as previous sittings, around one in five, and it is the number that should govern how a resit is planned. In January 2026 the same calculation produced roughly one in five.
23% is not a statement about ability. It is a statement about method. Candidates who resit without changing how they prepare tend to repeat the result, which is the central finding of the January 2026 results analysis and the reason the resit guide starts with a diagnostic rather than a syllabus. The single most common failure mode is reading the same notes more slowly. The fix is question volume with every wrong answer traced back to the rule, which is what MCQ technique and exam strategy drills.
What It Means If You Are Sitting in January 2027
January 2027 is the first SQE1 sitting on the SRA's updated specification, which took effect on 1 September 2026 with an examinable law cut-off of 11 September 2026. The SRA refers to this in the news item as minor changes to the assessment, with further planned changes to follow. Minor is accurate at the level of the syllabus and misleading at the level of your materials: tax figures are now provided in questions, trust cases are newly named, and wills and criminal topics are expanded. Every specification change explained has the full list and a currency check to run against whatever you are revising from.
Four things follow from today's figures.
One: do not read 42% as your own probability. You are a first-time or a resit candidate, on a particular runway, with a particular degree background. The relevant numbers for you are 47% and 23%, and both move with preparation.
Two: the January cohort effect cuts your way, and it is not a cushion. January sittings have run 10 to 15 points higher for three years. That is composition, not generosity. Plan as though you were sitting in July.
Three: your dates are already fixed. FLK1 runs 11 to 15 January 2027 and FLK2 runs 18 to 22 January 2027. The seat reservation form closed on 24 September 2026. If you did not return one, a limited number of seats can be booked directly through your candidate account in the window that closes on 23 November 2026, subject to availability. Every date, with the payment windows, is in the exam dates and deadlines guide, and you should confirm it against sqe.sra.org.uk before you rely on it, because the SRA has moved these dates once already this cycle.
Four: the fee follows the assessment date, not the booking date. January 2027 costs £2,006 for both papers or £1,003 for a single paper, at the rate that took effect in September 2026, whenever you book. The fee increase guide explains why booking early does not avoid it.
If you are starting from results day, the 18-week resit plan for January 2027 is built on those dates. If you are coming in fresh with a shorter runway, the 12-week study plan maps the same ground, and the free study plan will lay out the syllabus week by week at no cost.
If you are still weighing a procedural challenge to a July result, note that the appeal window ran ten working days from results day on 8 September and has closed. Appeals, marking reviews and mitigating circumstances sets out the grounds and why the marking itself cannot be appealed.
What Today's Figures Do Not Include
The news item is the headline, not the report. It gives the overall rate, the first-attempt rate and the cohort split. It does not give:
- The FLK1 and FLK2 pass rates and the gap between them. FLK2 has trailed FLK1 at every sitting, by five points in January 2026 and three in July 2025, and it is the single most actionable number for a study plan.
- The score distribution: means, medians and the observed range against the 300 pass mark. The distance between the mean and 300 is what tells you how thin the safety margin is.
- The demographic breakdown by degree class, age, ethnicity, first language and parental education. In January 2026 degree class was the strongest single predictor in the report, and nothing in today's item speaks to whether that held.
All three are in the SRA's full statistical report for the sitting, published on the SQE reports page. When you read it, take the first-attempt rate before the headline, read the means rather than the medians, and check your own degree-class and age band against the overall rate before you decide how many hours you need. We will update this post with the FLK1, FLK2 and demographic figures once we have read the report in full.
For how the results timetable works and what the score report itself shows, the July 2026 results day guide covers it. If you have decided to commit properly this time, the pricing page has what a full mock and question stack costs.
The Short Version
- The SRA published the July 2026 SQE1 figures on 29 September 2026.
- 42% overall, up one point from 41% in July 2025. 47% first-attempt, up one point from 46%.
- 6,315 candidates completed both parts: 5,012 first-time sitters and 1,303 resitting one or both papers.
- January sittings have run 10 to 15 points higher than July sittings for three years running, which the SRA attributes to cohort composition rather than to the papers.
- The derived resit pass rate is about 23%, derived from the SRA's rounded figures, roughly one in five and in line with previous sittings.
- FLK1 and FLK2 rates, score distributions and demographic data are not in the news item; they are in the full statistical report.
- January 2027 is the first sitting on the updated specification, FLK1 from 11 January and FLK2 from 18 January, at £2,006 or £1,003 for a single paper.
A pass rate is a summary. Your plan is the thing that moves it.
