SQE 1 Drops To 170 Questions From January 2027
The SRA confirmed this week that SQE 1 drops to 170 questions from January 2027, with the changes applying to every candidate from that sitting onwards, first sitters and resitters alike. If you are sitting in January 2027 or later, here is what actually changes and what stays the same.
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Each FLK assessment drops from 180 questions to 170, so you will answer 85 per session instead of 90, and 340 across SQE1 overall instead of 360. The time allowed stays at 2 hours 33 minutes per session. Do the maths and that works out to roughly 1 minute 48 seconds per question, up from 1 minute 42. Six seconds does not sound like much, but across 85 questions it adds up to real breathing room on the ones that need a second read.
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This is the bigger change. Until now, any subject could appear in either session. From January, each session covers a fixed set of subjects:
FLK 1, Session 1: Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, Legal Services
FLK 1, Session 2: Contract, Tort, Legal Systems (including Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law)
FLK 2, Session 1: Wills and Administration of Estates, Trusts, Land Law, Solicitors Accounts in the context of Wills
FLK 2, Session 2: Property Law and Practice, Criminal Law and Practice, Criminal Liability, Solicitors Accounts in the context of Property
Two caveats. Ethics and Professional Conduct stays pervasive, so expect it anywhere in any session. Questions within each session remain fully randomised, so you will still jump between subjects question to question. You just know which subjects the jumping is limited to.
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The syllabus has not changed and neither has the blueprint, so your study plan does not need reworking. What changes is exam day strategy. You can now do a targeted final review before each session instead of trying to hold everything in your head for both. For FLK 1 that means business, disputes and legal services in the morning, then contract, tort and legal systems after the break.
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Do not rely on a summary as your source of truth, including this one. Your prep is your responsibility. Read the SRA announcement yourself, check the assessment specification when the updated version lands, and confirm which format applies to your sitting before you book. Providers will update their materials at different speeds, and secondhand versions of exam rules are how avoidable mistakes happen. Five minutes on the SRA website beats any amount of commentary, mine included.
The SRA says the change came from candidate feedback that the exam felt rushed, backed by a data review across every previous sitting confirming that fewer questions will not hurt the accuracy of results.
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Reaction so far has been welcoming but measured. As reported by Legal Futures, the College of Legal Practice described the reforms as "an improvement rather than the transformational change many aspiring solicitors need" and argued the real fix would be letting candidates choose to sit FLK 1, FLK 2 or both at their first attempt.
Its chief executive Dr Giles Proctor made a point that will resonate with many of you: candidates studying alongside full time work, caring responsibilities or financial pressure still face the deeper challenge of preparing for two demanding assessments in the same window.
In the same report, QLTS School's Nir Chanoch took a more positive view, saying the change reduces the cognitive load of holding so much unrelated information at once, and noting that six extra seconds per question adds up to roughly eight and a half additional minutes across a session.
That second framing is the fairer way to size this. Six seconds sounds trivial. Eight and a half minutes of breathing room per session does not, especially on the questions that need a second read. So my take lands between the two camps. This is a modest change, not a fix for everything SQE 1, but if you are sitting in January 2027, take the win and use the session split to plan your final review.
