Unexpected rise in BPTC student numbers follows four-year decline

The number of students enrolling on the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) has unexpectedly risen by 14% after a downward trend emerged over the last four years.

Bar Standards Board (BSB) figures show that 1,624 students enrolled on the BPTC for 2017/18, up from 1,423 the previous year. As Legal Futures reports, some of the increase may be attributed to the opening of BPP Law School’s new site in Bristol, as well as the expansion of Cardiff University’s BPTC. Another possibility is that some students are taking the plunge onto the BPTC before the Future Bar Training programme changes the system.

The news will do little to assuage fears over the state of the junior Bar – with both the current Bar Council chair Andrew Walker QC and his predecessor, Andrew Langdon QC, expressing concern about the costs and debts usually incurred in getting to the Bar, as well as about the shortage of barristers willing to take on publicly funded cases because a lack of legal aid funding has made this type of career financially unviable for juniors struggling to make ends meet.