Allen & Overy confirmed yesterday afternoon that it has hiked salaries for all its UK fee earners.

First seat trainees go up from £39k to £40k. NQs from £64k to £66.5k, 1PQE from £69.5k to £72.5k, 2PQE from £78.5k to £82.5k and 3PQE from £89k to £93.5k. Hurrah!

The firm pitched it as "a reflection of the strength of our performance within the London office as we have made a positive start in the year to date. It is the hard work and effort of all of our people that underpins our success as a firm, and this is recognition of the contribution our trainees and associates make to that success". Which is all jolly niceut all the other Magic Circle firms increased their salaries earlier this year, leaving A&O lagging at the bottom of the table. So it probably didn't have that much choice.

Still, it's a chunk more money in a week when the FTSE has crashed. So an early and welcome Christmas present to all. 

Merry Christmas.

The Magic Circle table now stands as follows:

	1st seat trainee	NQ	1PQE	2PQE	3PQE
Clifford Chance	£40,500	£67,500	£72,500	£84,000	£93,500
Freshfields	£40,500	£67,500 - £77,500		£87,500 - £100,000
Linklaters	£40,000	£65,000	£70,500	£82,000	£93,500
Slaughter and May	£39,500	£65,000	£70,000	£79,000	£89,000
Allen & Overy	£40,000	£66,500	£72,500	£82,500	£93,500