Those called to the Bar by legal year
"Call" is the date at which barristers are formally recognised to have passed the vocational stage of training and have been called to the Bar by their Inn of Court. Barristers are often referred to by the year of their "year of Call" which is calculated on the same date.
Tenancy
Securing "tenancy" means being accepted as a permanent member of chambers, traditionally upon completion of pupillage. Barristers normally secure tenancy in the set where they completed their pupillage, although it is also possible to apply elsewhere.
The following charts contain data on those that have completed pupillage and gone on to gain tenancy less than six months after the end of the legal year in which they completed pupillage.
Caveats
* Please note that reporting mechanisms have changed over the past years. As a result of sourcing from various data streams and the implementation of more robust quality assurance structures some numbers may vary from previous publications.
** We gather diversity data for individual barristers via the "MyBar" online portal, as part of the Authorisation to Practise process, using a Legal Services Board-designed form. Provision of the data is voluntary because data protection laws dictate that people - in any profession - cannot be obliged to disclose equality and diversity data about themselves if they do not wish to do so.
*** Data on tenancy is for confirmed tenancies, where the barrister has updated their record in MyBar to ndicate they have gained tenancy. There are additional tenancies in a given year that we do not have a complete record of, as barristers do not always update their MyBar records to indicate that they have become tenants.
Date of next update
November 2026
Source of data
This data is sourced from the Bar Standards Board Database.
