The 18 QWE Competences and What They Look Like in Real Work

Every QWE record is built around the SRA's Statement of Solicitor Competence. It is the list your training record is mapped to, the thing a confirming solicitor checks your evidence against, and the part candidates most often arrive knowing least about. Plenty of guidance mentions it. Very little of it tells you what is actually in the list.

So here is the whole thing, in the SRA's own words, with a note on each one about the kind of work that tends to evidence it. We confirm QWE for a living and these notes come from the records we read, not from paraphrasing the regulator.

A note on spelling before we start, because it trips people up when they search. The SRA writes it both ways. Its Statement of Solicitor Competence says competences, while its qualifying work experience guidance sometimes says competencies, occasionally a sentence apart. They mean the same thing. We follow the Statement and use competences throughout.

First, the number that matters: two

You do not need all eighteen. The SRA requires that your work experience gave you the opportunity to develop at least two of the competences. Two is the floor, and a great many perfectly good records sit well below the maximum.

Two is a floor rather than a formality, though. The SRA says in terms that a role involving only a single competence will not count as QWE, even where that role is plainly providing legal services. One is not enough, however well evidenced.

This is worth saying plainly because the opposite belief does real damage. Candidates pad records to reach a number they think is expected, and a padded record is weaker than an honest one, not stronger. A confirming solicitor reading sixteen thinly evidenced rows will trust the file less than one reading four that are properly supported. Claim what the evidence carries.

The four areas

The eighteen competences sit in four groups. The SRA says the statement should be read holistically: these are not watertight boxes, and a single piece of work will often touch several at once.

A. Ethics, professionalism and judgment

A1 Act honestly and with integrity, in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements and the SRA Standards and Regulations.
In practice: the occasion you declined to approve something, or gave the answer the business did not want. A1 is evidenced by inconvenient decisions far better than by statements of principle.

A2 Maintain the level of competence and legal knowledge needed to practise effectively, taking into account changes in their role and/or practice context and developments in the law.
In practice: following a change in the law and applying it. CPD records help, but a matter that turned on a recent amendment is stronger.

A3 Work within the limits of their competence and the supervision which they need.
In practice: the time you referred something out, to counsel or to someone more senior, and said why. Candidates often hide this, thinking it looks like weakness. It is a competence in its own right and one of the easiest to evidence well.

A4 Draw on a sufficient detailed knowledge and understanding of their field(s) of work and role in order to practise effectively.
In practice: naming the actual provision you applied. "We considered the regulations" evidences nothing. "Article 6(1)(f), and here is why it was satisfied" evidences A4.

A5 Apply understanding, critical thinking and analysis to solve problems.
In practice: a matter where the facts were incomplete or contradictory and you had to weigh them. The SRA's own sub-points include recognising gaps in information, so a problem you solved despite missing evidence fits squarely.

B. Technical legal practice

B1 Obtain relevant facts.
In practice: going behind what you were told. Reading the file line by line, pulling the ownership record rather than accepting how a relationship was described.

B2 Undertake legal research.
In practice: a question you could not answer from memory, the sources you consulted, and the conclusion you reached. Name the sources.

B3 Develop and advise on relevant options, strategies and solutions.
In practice: setting out more than one course and explaining why you recommended the one you did. A record that only ever describes the option taken misses most of what B3 asks for.

B4 Draft documents which are legally effective and accurately reflect the client's instructions.
In practice: contracts, policies, notices, agreements. If you worked from a template, say what you changed and why, because the amendments are your drafting and the boilerplate is not.

B5 Undertake effective spoken and written advocacy.
In practice: see the section below, because this one is widely misread.

B6 Negotiate solutions to clients' issues.
In practice: a position you took in a negotiation, what the other side wanted, and where it landed. Internal negotiation counts; the client can be the business you work for.

B7 Plan, manage and progress legal cases and transactions.
In practice: carrying a matter from instruction to conclusion, including the risk you managed along the way.

C. Working with other people

C1 Communicate clearly and effectively, orally and in writing.
In practice: explaining a legal position to someone without legal training, in a way they could act on.

C2 Establish and maintain effective and professional relations with clients.
In practice: in-house and public sector candidates sometimes assume they have no clients. You do. The teams who bring you questions are your clients for this purpose.

C3 Establish and maintain effective and professional relations with other people.
In practice: working with counsel, counterparties, other departments, or external experts you instructed and managed.

D. Managing themselves and their own work

D1 Initiate, plan, prioritise and manage work activities and projects, both your own work and work you lead or supervise.
In practice: something you started rather than something you were handed. A programme you identified the need for and built is ideal evidence.

D2 Keep, use and maintain accurate, complete and clear records.
In practice: a file note, memorandum or register that recorded a decision, the reasons for it and a review date. This competence is evidenced by a document, so it is one of the easiest to support.

D3 Apply good business practice.
In practice: showing you understood the commercial context your advice landed in, and what it cost the business to follow it.

The advocacy trap, and why B5 is under-claimed

More candidates mark B5 as not applicable than should. The usual reason is that they have never been in court, and they read "advocacy" as meaning court advocacy.

It does not. The SRA attaches a footnote to B5 which says, in terms, that it applies to advocacy both in and out of court. Written and spoken advocacy outside a courtroom counts: putting a reasoned case to a regulator, arguing a position in a negotiation, making representations in a disciplinary or grievance process, or presenting an argument to a board or committee and dealing with the challenges that came back.

The confusion is made worse by the SRA's own training template, which renders the footnote as advocacy "in and of court". That is a typographical error in a form, not a narrowing of the competence, and we have seen it cost candidates a row they were entitled to claim. Read the Statement, not the template.

Where mapping goes wrong

The column nobody knows what to do with

The SRA's template ends each row with "Do I need more experience?". It worries candidates more than it should. It is a planning column for your own benefit, not a test you can fail, and an honest mixture of yes and no reads better than a column of no. Saying you would like more exposure to an area does not weaken the row above it.

How we map competences

You are not expected to work this out alone, and we would rather you did not try. When you tell us about your experience we identify which competences your work actually evidences, tell you which ones we think you should drop, and give you a training record template already set up for your situation. That mapping is free and happens before any payment, because the only sensible time to find out that a competence is not supported is before you have built a record around it.

One thing worth knowing: the SRA is currently consulting on proposed updates to its competence framework. Nothing has changed yet, and the eighteen competences above remain the ones your QWE is mapped to today, but it is a reason to get a record finished rather than leave it sitting for a year.