FAQs

You can only apply for one programme every 12 months, but you can sign up for multiple insight events and apply for a programme.

Please note, the LIFT programme is not an early careers programme, so you can apply for this even if you have applied for an early careers opportunity recently.

Our academic requirements for vacation schemes and training contracts are AAB in your A-levels and a 2:1 degree (or equivalent). For the paralegal academy, they are CCC at A-level and a 2:2 degree. We’ll always consider mitigating circumstances and look at each application using the Rare's contextualised recruitment system. No application is automatically rejected based on academics.

Unfortunately, we cannot offer feedback at the application stage because of the high number of applications we receive. However, you will receive an automated feedback report after you have completed the digital simulation stage. We’ll always provide feedback if you attend an assessment centre or interview.

We want to make our process accessible and fair to all. Please reach out to us if you require any reasonable adjustments.

Click here to read our full guide to reasonable adjustments, support and accessibility for our assessment process.

If you would prefer to speak to a member of our team, you can contact earlycareers@clydeco.com

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

As we are recruiting for 2026 training contracts via our 2024 vacation schemes, we require that applicants are law undergraduates in their penultimate-year or non-law undergraduates in their final year. For Scotland, you need to be a penultimate year Scots Law undergraduate, or in your first year of the accelerated LLB.

No, unfortunately, we have a limited number of places on our one vacation scheme. We are unable to make exceptions to the eligibility criteria.

Final year law students are eligible to apply for our Bristol training contracts or our June 2024 intake of the paralegal academy (applications will open in February 2024 for various locations across the UK).

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 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.

We recruit most of our trainees via vacation schemes, but we have direct training contract application routes in Bristol and Belfast.

We also recruit trainees from our existing paralegals, so you may consider this option (please note our paralegals require 12 months of service before they can apply for a training contract). The early careers team do not recruit paralegal roles outside of the paralegal academy, but you can search our job site for available roles.

We don’t – we only have a September intake.

If you join the London and Guildford training contract, one of your seats could be in Guildford.

Possibly – we look at requests on a case-by-case basis.

Please visit our UK Paralegal Academy page for more detailed information.

You can only apply for one location and one role every 12 months. Please only make one application, as we cannot consider you for multiple roles.

Our main intakes are March, June, September and December. This may vary and is subject to change based on business needs.

We recommend you apply for the experience hire roles, which are still part of the paralegal academy but are not recruited by the early careers team. Please search for these roles on our jobs site.

Graduates are only eligible to apply for our paralegal academy, or Bristol training contracts. You can apply with an LPC, but please note that for trainees we now follow the SQE route.

For our direct training contract vacancies in England, which are currently only in Bristol, you can apply with an LPC. However, we will require you to complete part of the SQE (SQE2 and our SQE+ programme). This is to ensure that from 2025, all our trainees start the training contract having received the same training. We would arrange and pay for these courses.

If you want to apply for a role in England and qualify in England and Wales, you may need to complete parts of the PGDL (law conversion course) – we’d recommend contacting the SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) for further advice. All trainees will need to complete the SQE. Clyde & Co will arrange any pay for this after you are offered.

We also have roles available in our Scottish and Northern Irish offices, so please visit the relevant part of this site to learn more.

Yes. However, if you haven’t started your course yet, we suggest taking courses with the University of Law.

We cover the cost of tuition fees and provide a maintenance grant for the PGDL/SQE. We cannot reimburse expenses for completed courses, but if you are currently studying, we can cover costs and provide a pro-rated maintenance grant from the point you accept a training contract offer.