When are SQE1 results released?

The short answer

SQE1 results are released roughly two to three months after the sitting, on a single published date for the whole cohort. The exact date is confirmed in advance for each sitting, so the number to work from is the one published for your own sitting rather than the interval a friend remembers from last year.

That is the whole pattern. A sitting early in the year typically produces results in the spring, and a summer sitting typically produces results in the autumn. The gap is not identical every time, which is why this page deliberately does not print a specific date. A wrong date here would be worse for you than no date at all. Checked 9 September 2026.

• Roughly two to three months between sitting and results
• One published results day for the whole cohort, not a rolling release
• The date for each sitting is published before that sitting takes place
• The interval moves slightly between sittings, so do not assume last year's gap
• SQE2 runs on its own separate results timetable

What actually happens on SQE1 results day

Your result is released to you, through the assessment provider's candidate portal, with an email notification telling you it is available. Nobody else receives it first. Your firm, your university and your prep provider are not sent your outcome unless you have separately agreed to share it, which sponsored candidates often have.

What you get is thinner than most people expect: an overall pass or fail for SQE1, plus a quintile band for each of FLK1 and FLK2 showing roughly where you sat against the rest of the cohort. There is no raw mark, no percentage, no subject by subject breakdown and no list of the questions you got wrong. Questions are reused across sittings, so that detail is never published.

Two practical things are worth doing before the day. Check that the email address on your candidate account is one you can still access, because that is where the notification goes. And expect the portal to be slow at release, because a very large number of people are refreshing it at once. A failed page load is not a signal about your result.

• Released to you through the candidate portal, with an email notification
• Pass or fail overall, plus a quintile band for each of FLK1 and FLK2
• No raw score, no percentage and no per question feedback
• Check the email address on your candidate account weeks beforehand
• Portals slow down at release, which tells you nothing about your own outcome

What time are SQE1 results released?

Honestly: no clock time is guaranteed, and anyone who tells you otherwise is quoting a pattern rather than a commitment.

What can be said is that releases have historically landed during the UK working day rather than at midnight, and that the release happens once rather than trickling out candidate by candidate. That is as much precision as the evidence supports. Times have varied between sittings, and a time that held at one sitting has no status at the next.

So the forum ritual of refreshing the portal from seven in the morning is understandable and entirely wasted. Set the day aside if you can, keep your phone on for the email, and do not read anything into the fact that somebody on a forum has theirs and you do not. If the release is staged at all, the order is administrative, not a ranking. Checked 9 September 2026.

Why do SQE results take so long?

Because almost all of the marking work happens after you sit, not before. This is the real answer, and it is not an administrative excuse.

The questions themselves are computer marked quickly. What takes months is what comes next. First, the pass mark for that sitting has to be set. It is not a fixed percentage decided in advance; subject experts judge how difficult each question was for a just competent candidate, and those judgements are turned into the required standard for that particular paper. That process cannot start until the questions have actually been delivered to candidates, and it is deliberately slow and deliberately collective.

Second, every question's statistical performance is reviewed. If a question behaved oddly, for example if strong candidates got it wrong at a strange rate, it is investigated and can be removed from scoring before results are finalised. That review exists to protect candidates from a bad question, and it is the reason nobody can hand you a provisional mark on the day.

Third, the two papers have to be processed, combined and quality assured across a very large cohort before a single overall outcome exists for anybody. Add those together and a gap measured in months is what falls out. It is genuinely frustrating to sit through. It is also the machinery that stops a defective question costing someone their qualification.

• The pass mark is set after the sitting, through a standard setting procedure, not fixed in advance
• Every question's statistical performance is reviewed, and poor performers can be removed from scoring
• Both papers must be processed and combined before an overall result exists
• The whole dataset is quality assured before anything is released
• No provisional or estimated result is available in the meantime, from anyone

How to plan around the wait

The gap has practical consequences, and the candidates who handle it best treat it as a known quantity rather than a void.

If you are timing a training contract start date, a visa application, an application deadline or a decision about booking SQE2, work from the published results date for your sitting and work backwards. Booking windows for the next sitting frequently open before you know your result, which means at some point you may have to decide whether to book a resit you might not need. That is uncomfortable, and it is normal.

The other decision is what to do with the months themselves. Stopping entirely is the common choice and the expensive one if the result goes badly, because the next sitting then arrives with your knowledge cold. A light maintenance habit, a handful of questions a few times a week, costs very little and keeps the option open.

After results are released, the SRA separately publishes a statistical report for that sitting, containing the pass rate and the pass marks applied. It lands after results day rather than alongside it, so on the day itself you will have your own outcome before any national context exists. This site is independent of the SRA and of Kaplan, and nothing here is legal advice. Checked 9 September 2026.

• Work backwards from the published results date, not from a remembered interval
• Booking for the next sitting can open before you have your result
• A light question habit through the wait costs little and protects you if the news is bad
• The sitting's statistical report is published after results day, not with it
• Read more in the full SQE1 results guide

Related questions

This page answers one question. These cover the neighbouring ones.

• What happened to the QLTS? for qualified foreign lawyers looking at the route now
• Can you do an LLM or MA Law with SQE1? on bundling preparation into a masters
• SQE1 results: the timetable, the wait and what you get, the full guide this page sits under