What a law firm receptionist really costs (salary, cover and the gaps)

At least the legal minimum, and in practice something close to the going rate for receptionists or legal secretaries where you are. These are the most useful reference points:

Some salary figures you'll find online are now below the legal minimum, because they come from older job adverts or older pay data. For a full-time receptionist aged 21 or over, anything under £24,784.50 a year at 37.5 hours a week is below the National Living Wage from April 2026.

Younger staff have lower legal minimums: £10.85 an hour at 18 to 20, and £8 an hour for under-18s and apprentices. Those are the legal floor, not what an experienced receptionist in a law firm will expect.

More than the salary. Here's one full-time receptionist aged 21 or over, on 37.5 hours a week at the National Living Wage:

The National Insurance rate and threshold come from HMRC's rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027. The pension figure uses the minimum employer contribution of 3% on qualifying earnings; many firms pay more.

At the ONS full-time median of £13.22 an hour, the same sum comes to £29,482.02 a year: £25,779 in pay, £3,116.85 in National Insurance and £586.17 in pension.

A legal secretary on £30,000, an example inside the National Careers Service range, costs £34,462.80 a year: £30,000 in pay, £3,750 in employer National Insurance and £712.80 in minimum pension.

Cover for when they're away, and the time it takes to get someone up to speed. The table above pays for one person in the seat, not for the seat when they're not in it.

• Holiday cover. Staff are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, which is 28 days for someone working five days a week, and bank holidays can count towards it. Covering 5.6 weeks with someone on the same rate costs £2,669.10 (5.6 × 37.5 × £12.71), plus National Insurance and pension.
• Sickness. Statutory Sick Pay is £123.25 a week, or 80% of the employee's average weekly earnings if that's lower, for up to 28 weeks. You also pay whoever covers the desk.
• Training. A receptionist in a law firm needs to learn your areas of law, your intake questions, how to handle confidential information and when to put a call through to a fee earner. That takes a manager's or a solicitor's time.
• Recruitment. Adverts, interviews and the weeks a new starter takes to learn your systems. These vary too much to put a fair figure on, so use your own.

Two things can bring the National Insurance line down. The Employment Allowance cuts an eligible employer's National Insurance bill by up to £10,500 a year, but it's one allowance across the whole payroll, so in a firm with several employed fee earners it may already be used up. And employers pay no National Insurance on an under-21 employee's earnings up to £50,270.

About 22% of the week. A full-time receptionist on 37.5 hours covers 37.5 of the 168 hours in a week, and calls also go unanswered inside those hours when they're on another line, greeting a client or at lunch.

Part-time cover costs less and covers less. For example, 20 hours a week at the National Living Wage costs £13,218.40 in pay, £1,232.76 in employer National Insurance and £209.35 in pension, so £14,660.51 a year. For comparison, the ONS median for all receptionists, including part-time staff, is £18,152 a year.

For most firms the problem isn't the middle of a quiet Tuesday. It's the overlap: two lines ringing while a client is at the desk, the lunch hour, and the time after 5pm when people finally get round to calling a solicitor.

When reception is on another call, at lunch or covering the door, overflow rings go to voicemail or die unanswered, and those are often the new-enquiry calls your marketing paid for.

That matters because so many people compare. In the Legal Services Consumer Panel's 2026 tracker survey of legal services users in England and Wales, 42% shopped around before choosing, and of those who compared providers, 57% looked at price. A caller who reaches your voicemail and then a competitor's receptionist has made their decision for you.

To put a number on it, use the sum in our guide to what missed calls cost a law firm: missed new-client calls a week × the share who'd have instructed you × your average fee × 52. For the hours when reception has gone home, our guide to out-of-hours calls for law firms covers the options.

They do different jobs, so the answer is often a mix: a person at the desk in office hours, and something else for the overflow and the evenings.

To be straight with you: an AI receptionist doesn't replace your front desk. It doesn't greet clients, look after meeting rooms, deal with the post or give legal advice. What it does is answer the calls the desk can't take, so they don't ring out. Our comparison of AI receptionists and human answering services and our legal answering service guide go into the choice in more detail.