1.1 Current SQE1 Exam Facts

What SQE1 is testing

Quick answer: SQE1 is the Functioning Legal Knowledge (FLK) stage of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is the regulator. Kaplan is the sole assessment provider. Computer-based sittings take place at Pearson VUE test centres. You sit two papers — FLK1 and FLK2 — on two separate days. From the January 2027 sitting each paper has 170 single-best-answer questions in two sessions of 85 questions, each 2 hours 33 minutes long (SRA, 10 September 2026).

SQE1 is not a university finals paper and it is not a memory test of every footnote in a practitioner text. It asks whether you can apply the core legal principles and rules of England and Wales at the level of a newly qualified solicitor to realistic client problems, including ethical problems. The SRA calls that standard functioning legal knowledge. The same idea appears in the SQE1 Assessment Specification: you must apply fundamental principles effectively, not recite the development of the law or look up detail that a day-one solicitor would be expected to check.

Three names appear on every booking email, and mixing them up is a common prep error. The SRA sets the competence statement, the assessment specification, the attempt rules, and the admission rules. Kaplan writes, delivers, and marks the assessment under contract with the SRA; it does not sell SQE training. Pearson VUE supplies the test-centre network and the computer environment. If a centre rule (lockers, whiteboard, unscheduled breaks) feels like a Pearson rule, it is. If a pass-mark or resit-window rule feels like a regulator rule, it is the SRA's.

You cannot treat SQE1 as an optional extra on the way to a training contract. Unless you had already started the old Legal Practice Course (LPC) or Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme (QLTS) pathway by September 2021, passing SQE1 (both FLKs) is a compulsory step towards admission as a solicitor of England and Wales. Section 1.3 of this chapter maps the rest of that route. This section pins down the live numbers you must not get wrong on booking day or in a “how many questions?” conversation.

Two papers, two days, four sessions

Each sitting of SQE1 is two assessments:

• FLK1 — business law and practice, dispute resolution, contract, tort, the legal system of England and Wales (including constitutional and administrative law and EU law), and legal services, with ethics running through the paper and anti-money-laundering tested in FLK1.
• FLK2 — property practice, wills and the administration of estates, solicitors' accounts (in the context of those practice areas), land law, trusts, criminal liability, and criminal law and practice, again with ethics running through the paper.

You take FLK1 on one day and FLK2 on another day in the same assessment window (unless you are resitting a single FLK or an exemption applies). Each day is split into two sessions. From January 2027 the SRA reduced the item count but kept the session clock:

The SRA announced those changes on 10 September 2026 and confirmed them on the SQE1 assessment-day page. The SRA's stated reason is candidate and stakeholder feedback that the paper can feel rushed and pressurised on time per question, supported by a review of data from every previous SQE1 window; randomisation within each session is retained for assessment security. It is not a quieter syllabus: Annex 4 still requires the same subject coverage. Because the clock is unchanged, the average time per question rises slightly (about 1 minute 48 seconds per item at 85 questions, compared with about 1 minute 42 seconds at 90). That is not spare time to write an essay. It is barely enough to read a fact pattern, eliminate weak options, and move on.

Treat “340” and “170” as different units. 170 is one FLK paper. 340 is SQE1 as a whole. Candidates who quote 180 after January 2027 are describing a retired format. Candidates who quote 90 questions per session are likewise out of date from that sitting.

Session subject grouping from January 2027

Until January 2027, every subject in an FLK could appear in either session of that day. The SRA changed that after candidate feedback: mixing every subject across both sessions made it harder to keep the right “file” open in your head. From January 2027, questions in each session come from a fixed group of subjects. Ethics and professional conduct still appear in every session of both FLKs. Within a session the order is fully randomised, so you will not get a block of tort followed by a block of contract. You will get a shuffled mix of that session's subjects, with ethics threaded through.

Ethics and professional conduct is not a fifth column in that table because it is not confined to one session. The specification says it is examined pervasively. The SRA also warns that ethics items can draw on warning notices (for example on non-disclosure agreements and strategic lawsuits against public participation). Anti-money-laundering questions are assessed in FLK1 only. Annex 4 allows ethics and professional conduct and money-laundering questions together to make up up to 20% of the questions in a sitting.

How to use the grouping without studying the wrong half of the day

A candidate who finishes FLK1 Session 1 and spends the break cramming land law is wasting the only rest the clock will give them. Land law is an FLK2 Session 1 subject. The useful break work is water, food, and a reset — then FLK1 Session 2 (tort, contract, legal system).

A candidate who builds a revision timetable that still assumes “anything can come up in hour one” is training for the pre-2027 paper. From January 2027 you can, and should, plan a Session 1 mind-set and a Session 2 mind-set. You cannot, however, assume questions will arrive in textbook order. Randomisation inside the session is a security feature. If you only recognise tort when it follows a heading that says “Tort”, you will drop marks on a shuffled screen.

Solicitors' accounts appear twice on FLK2, but the context differs. Session 1 tests accounts in the administration of estates; Session 2 tests accounts in conveyancing and property practice. A double-entry that is correct for a client account transfer on a sale file can be the wrong next step on a deceased's estate. Read the facts before you reach for the SRA Accounts Rules reflex.

Fees from September 2026, booking, and resits

The SRA cost page splits fees into two eras. For assessments up to September 2026, SQE1 cost £1,934 (£967 per FLK). From September 2026 onwards the figures are:

All of those SQE assessment fees are VAT exempt. Appeal fees are separate (£350 first-stage, £850 final) and are refunded if the appeal is upheld.

On a first sit you must book both FLK1 and FLK2 at the same sitting and pay in a single payment. Both parts must be taken in the same assessment window unless an exemption applies or you have already passed one FLK and are resitting the other. You cannot “bank” a cheap experiment of sitting only FLK1 to see how you get on. You also cannot resit a paper you have already passed in order to improve the mark.

Cancellation charges can apply if you withdraw after booking; the SRA directs candidates to Part D of the SQE Assessment Terms and Conditions and recommends the model cancellation form. Do not assume a Pearson VUE call-centre cancellation is enough. The SRA wants written notice.

Attempts, the six-year window, results, and the pass mark

You have a maximum of three attempts at FLK1 and three attempts at FLK2. SQE2 has its own three-attempt cap. If you fail the same part three times, you must wait until your six-year assessment window has expired before reapplying to start the SQE again. Previous passes do not carry forward into that new window. The six years run from the first day of your first attempt at any SQE assessment, which might be SQE1 or, for some candidates, another SQE assessment. You can only book a resit after the results of the previous attempt at that assessment have been released.

Results for SQE1 are released approximately 5–6 weeks after the sitting. The SRA's results pages describe the pipeline: Pearson VUE data move to Kaplan, psychometric review, pass-mark setting, and Assessment Board approval. That is why you do not walk out of the centre with a pass/fail screen.

There is no fixed published pass percentage for SQE1. Each FLK has its own pass mark, reset each sitting, using a modified Angoff method (subject-matter experts judging the probability that a just-competent newly qualified solicitor would answer each item correctly), with equating and a standard error of measurement. A friend who “needed 60% in July” is not giving you a rule. They are giving you a rumour about one window. Your job in prep is to become safe at newly qualified level across the specification, not to reverse-engineer last sitting's cut score.

What recent pass rates actually tell you

The SRA published the January 2026 SQE1 statistical report on 31 March 2026. For candidates who sat both FLKs, the overall pass rates were 58% first-time and 53% for all candidates (including resitters). Split by paper:

Two traps sit in that table. First, July sittings have been harder in the published series than the following January. July 2025's 46% / 41% overall figures are not a prediction for your window, but they are a warning against treating a winter pass-rate headline as a promise. Second, FLK2 trails FLK1 in every row. Property, accounts, trusts, land, and crime are not the “afternoon paper you can coast”. If your revision plan spends 70% of the hours on contract and tort because they feel like undergraduate comfort, you are training for the wrong half of SQE1.

Pass rates are not pass marks. A 58% first-time pass rate means 58% of first-time candidates who sat both papers met that sitting's Angoff-derived standard. It does not mean you pass by scoring 58% of 170. Do not convert the table into a target raw score.

Annex 4: how much of each paper is each subject

SQE1 Annex 4 is the Functioning Legal Knowledge blueprint. It uses single best classification: each item is assigned to the subject that is its primary focus. The SRA is explicit that a question classified as “contract” may still require dispute-resolution knowledge, and that a 20% blueprint figure does not mean only 20% of the paper needs that subject's rules.

Legal Services is the only core FLK1 subject with a slightly narrower band (12–16%). That is not a licence to skip it. Funding, the SRA Standards and Regulations as they apply to legal services, and related client-care rules still generate items, and ethics can attach to them.

The up to 20% cap for ethics, professional conduct, and (in FLK1) money-laundering questions is a ceiling on how large that combined slice can be in a sitting. It is not a separate third paper and it is not “20% extra on top of 100%”. In practice it means you cannot treat ethics as a weekend afterthought. A business-law item that is primarily about a share sale can still turn on whether the solicitor may act, what must be disclosed, or whether the retainer is being used to facilitate a crime.

A booking-day scenario

Priya is sitting SQE1 for the first time in January 2027. She must pay £2,006 and book both FLKs in that window. She should expect 170 questions each day, grouped as in the table above, with ethics in every session. She has three attempts at each FLK and six years from day one of this first assessment to complete the SQE. About 5–6 weeks later she will receive a pass/fail against that sitting's FLK-specific cut scores, not against a universal 50% or 70% rule. If she later fails only FLK2, a resit of that paper costs £1,003. If she had instead sat a window before January 2027, her papers would still have been 180/90, but the September 2026 fee increase would still have applied to any sitting from that date.

Official sources to re-check before you book: the SRA news item of 10 September 2026 on the January 2027 changes; How much does the SQE cost; the SQE1 assessment day page; the January 2026 statistical report news; and SQE1 Annex 4.