Experts: Medical professionals make up largest single group
There are an estimated 31,000 people in the UK carrying out expert witness work – 7,500 on a regular basis – and many are making a decent living from it, groundbreaking research has found.
Almost four in 10 are 65 or older and a similar proportion do not have any formal expert witness qualifications, while just under a quarter of experts are female, according to the first-ever assessment of the size and characteristics of the UK’s expert witness workforce.
In a report commissioned by the Expert Witness Institute (EWI), White Space Strategy (WSS) estimated that 12% of the group were ‘professional’ experts, in that they did no other work, while the largest single group (36%) devoted no more than a fifth of their working time to this work.
“EWI believes that expert witnesses should maintain their professional work alongside their expert witness work,” the report said. “This is essential to remain current and to understand key trends in practice.”
Most expert witnesses were either aged 65 to 74 (29%) or 55 to 64 (30%), while one in 10 were older than 75.
“To ensure that there is sufficient supply for the justice system, we need to ensure that there continues to be newer experts coming into the workforce,” the report said.
“We are aware that we also need to work with legal teams to ensure they recognise that instructing the same experts again and again is not going to help encourage newer experts gain the experience needed for more complex cases in the future.”
Four in 10 expert witnesses (41%) said they did not hold any expert witness qualifications, certifications or accreditations.
Researchers commented: “Perhaps of most concern is the fact that over 60% of respondents have said that they undertake work as a single joint expert but only half of those have had training.”
The most popular kinds of training were on report writing, followed by the ‘legal context/rules and regulations’, oral evidence and expert meetings and/or joint statements.
The Expert Witness Workforce 2026 [1] – which used a mix of publicly available data, survey and EWI data – recorded that the largest group of experts was medical practitioners (40% of the whole), followed by construction and building experts, and then ‘therapy professionals’, such as occupational therapists and psychiatrists.
While 29% experts said they had more than 100 engagements a year – this is likely to be largely medical professionals involved in volume whiplash cases – 32% said they had between 10 and 50.
More than three-quarters charge between £100 and £400 per hour. Only 7% charged less than £100, and 8% from £400 to £499.
Nearly half of expert witnesses make an annual income of £50,000 or more from this work, with 35% earning £80,000 or more.
Researchers found that 24% of the expert witness workforce is female but said that “there are signs that over time there will be greater representation with a far more balanced gender split in the 35-44 age group”. A large majority of expert witnesses (86%) are white.
Simon Berney-Edwards, chief executive of the EWI, said: “The results of this work will be used to help with advocacy with the government and judiciary, to develop relevant and robust policies, and to develop better and targeted services.”