The LMS Financial Benchmarking Survey 2021 has launched
by Andrew Otterburn
The LMS Financial Benchmarking Survey 2021 has now been launched and presents financial performance data on the financial year from 31 March 2019 to 30 April 2020, the year before the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis began to affect the UK.
The survey shows that:
- in early 2020, many firms were performing well, with 60% of participants recording year-on-year growth and one-quarter seeing growth of more than 10%
- median practice fee income increased by 1.6% (the smallest increase for nine years) and income per equity partner increased by 3.7% from £775,515 in 2019 to £804,437 in 2020
- firms reported a drop in profits per equity partner for the second year running – with a median drop of 6.9% for participating firms. Despite increased fee income, overheads grew more quickly than fees, leading to this fall in profits
- median spend on non-salary overheads per fee earner (everything except salary costs) was up 4.5%. Much of this was driven by rises in the cost of professional indemnity insurance cover and additional spend on IT
Click here to download the LMS Financial Benchmarking Survey 2021.
by Andrew Otterburn