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London Vacation Scheme

Our London vacation schemes are the perfect opportunity for you to experience life with our firm. You’ll spend two weeks with us and, although some of your time on the scheme will be about you getting to know what we do and who we work with, you’ll have plenty of time to get to know our trainees, associates and partners too.

Overview

Our vacation schemes are the most in-depth way to see and experience what life as a lawyer here is like. You’ll spend two paid weeks* getting real-world experience from day one. You might be drafting legal responses, offering advice or conducting research. It’s fully immersive and gives you the chance to gain a place on one of our London/Guildford training contracts.

*£520 per week – tax implications may affect the total amount paid. For further advice see the gov.uk website.

Applications for our London vacation schemes are currently closed.

 

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Eligibility

We are recruiting for both 2026 and 2027 training contracts via our 2025 vacation schemes and we require that applicants are: 

London Summer Vacation Scheme

  • Final year non-law students
  • Law students in their penultimate year of undergraduate degree
  • Have AAB at A-Level (taking into account mitigating circumstances, please include on your application form)

London Spring Vacation Scheme

  • Final year law students
  • Graduates of any degree discipline
  • Have AAB at A-Level (taking into account mitigating circumstances, please include on your application form)

Programme structure

The vacation schemes run for two weeks. During that time, you’ll be part of the day-to-day operations of our legal teams. We’ll partner you up with a buddy who will support you during your time with us and introduce you to an incredible network of people.
Spring dates: 13th April – 24th April
Summer dates: 29th June – 10th July

From day one

There isn’t much to do in the way of introductory courses or chats. After you’ve had a chance to meet your buddy, we’ll get you immersed in life at Clyde. From the start, you’ll be able to be hands-on, this could include: observing cases, sitting in on meetings, offering advice or drafting legal documents.

Witness excellence

You’ll be able to see and speak to some of our most senior practitioners. Observe them in their day-to-day roles and understand how they approach certain aspects of case preparation, research and technical application of the law.

Courtroom insight

As part of the programme, you may attend court hearings, arbitrations or mediations. Here you’ll be able to see the diverse litigation styles we deal with.‎

Networking for the future

Throughout your two weeks here you’ll meet people who could play a huge role in your legal future. We encourage you to take every opportunity to network, so much so we’ll put on a couple of events to allow you to make those valuable connections.

Assessed for a training contract

As part of the programme, you will be assessed for a Training Contract. We decide who the top performers are, and who will be offered a training contract, based on feedback from the assigned supervisors plus the outcome of a business case study exercise. This exercise usually takes place on your penultimate day and includes a written element and short presentation. It also includes a short reflection part, which allows you to explain all you have learnt during your 2-weeks, and express your motivation for training here. Ahead of this, the early careers team run a candidate workshop to ensure you feel prepared. It is a great opportunity to develop your skills further and meet new fee earners face-to-face.

Let's take it step by step

Our strengths-based recruitment process is based on fairness and equity. It’s designed to help us identify what motivates you to work at a city law firm, over your learnt experiences, and helps you show us the most authentic version of yourself. Here’s how it works:

Applications open

For all programmes, you’ll need to make your application online via our online application system. At this stage you’ll just need to complete your basic personal information. No lengthy written tasks for you to complete here.

Online Assessment

If you meet our eligiblity criteria, you will be invited to complete an online assessment. This includes a critical reasoning test, as well as our Clyde & Co strengths-based assessment, which contains a mix of question types including slider and order ranking. It is designed to present you with some of the challenges you can expect to face at Clyde & Co. For more advice and tips on how to approach this stage, visit our learning hub.

Video Interview

If you perform well in our initial online assessment, you will then be invited to complete a pre-recorded video interview. This means that you will be asked questions and will need to record your spoken response via video interview on our assessment platform. Some of these questions will be situational, but others will focus on your motivations for the role and Clyde & Co.

Assessment centre

Our assessment centre is the final stage of the process. Here, we are assessing candidates based on the strengths that will deliver success in a role. As part of the assessment day, you will take part in a preparation task which includes a written and presentation element, plus a group exercise and a strengths-based interview.

Offer

Our favourite part – the offer. We’ll notify you by phone if you’re successful, if you’re not, we’ll offer you some feedback for development. Don't worry, you will hear from us either way!

London Vacation Scheme FAQs

These relate specifically to our Vacation Scheme. If your question is not answered here, try our general FAQ page here.

Our vacation schemes are held in our London office to recruit for our London/Guildford training contracts, and Glasgow and Edinburgh for our Scotland training contract. We only run vacation schemes during the summer in Scotland, and run spring and summer for London.

For London, we are recruiting for 2028 training contracts via our 2026 summer vacation scheme, so require that applicants are law undergraduates in their penultimate year or non-law undergraduates in their final year. For our spring vacation scheme, applicants must be final year law students, or graduates of any discipline.

For Scotland, we will be recruiting for 2028 traineeships from our 2026 Vacation Scheme, therefore applicants can be penultimate or final year law students completing a Scots law degree (including accelerated LLB).

Yes, final year law students can apply for our spring vacation scheme.

Yes – you’ll need to be available to attend the entire scheme (2 weeks).

Our programmes are in-person, and we require all participants of our schemes to be based in the UK. We cannot sponsor visas for our programmes (only London training contracts), so you will need the Right to Work via a passport or a student visa (our programme dates will need to be outside your term dates to be eligible).

We’ll aim to let you know within two weeks of the vacation scheme end date.

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