Wills: Firms moving out of volume work
The private client market continues to grow, hitting £3.2bn this year, despite the number of law firms in it falling by 12% over the past five years, according to new research.
At the same time, law firms handling contentious wills, trust and probate work are very much on the rise.
IRN Legal Reports’ UK Wills, Probate & Trusts Market 2026 [1] estimated that the market would reach a value of £3.2bn this year, 6% up on 2025, with a further 6.6% growth predicted for next year.
But between 2022 and 2026, the number of law firms offering wills and probate work fell 12% to around 4,200 in each area, while 2,620 handled trusts work, 8.7% less than five years ago.
“Most of this decline has resulted from medium and smaller general practice firms closing or merging, or dropping their wills and probate services,” said IRN.
“The volume wills market is showing only limited growth with some players reducing their involvement in this sector and turning more to higher-value wills, probate and estate planning advice.”
The number of firms handling contentious work was up more than 20% over the period in each area – wills (301 firms), probate (330) and trusts (211). In 2025, 1,216 probate claims ended up in the High Court, 13% more than in the previous year.
After a record year for applications to register a power of attorney in 2024, registration numbers fell by 11% to 1.3m last year. But numbers are increasing again, growing by 19% in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025.
IRN said that, while demand in all the key market segments was, unsurprisingly, driven by older adults in the main, there were signs that “demand dynamics are likely to see some changes especially for estate planning services”.
It explained: “The number of complex estates is expected to grow leading to more estates disputes. Tax issues related to more estates will grow particularly with changes to inheritance tax and private pensions.
“The expected ‘Great Wealth Transfer’ in the UK which is predicted to be worth £7tn over the next three decades is likely to bring more income and assets to younger adults and families.
“These trends will encourage more people, many working below pensionable age, to look for tax planning/estate planning advice, plus consider drafting/rewriting a will.”
Meanwhile, an analysis of government data by South Wales law firm David W Harris & Co found that since online applications became compulsory for most probate applications made by professionals in 2020, the number of paper applications fell 88% to 17,481 by 2025. However, paper applications for letters of administration dropped just 3% to 29,736.
This is against the backdrop of the number of applications for letters of administration – needed when someone dies without a will – reaching 51,655 in 2025, 28% more than in 2020. This meant 58% were made on paper, compared to just 7% of applications for probate.
Paper applications for letters of administration also take considerably longer, an average of 14.2 weeks, compared with five weeks for digital applications, a gap that has grown over the decade.
Partner Tom Baker said: “These figures point to a two-speed system. Where someone has left a will, almost all applications are now made online, and waits have come down since 2020. Where there’s no will, waits have gone the other way.”
The study also found that more people were applying without a solicitor. Personal applications for letters of administration now make up 54% of all applications for letters of administration, up from 47% in 2020.
The wider picture showed more cases waiting longer. Probate cases open for 12 months or more reached 4,627 at the end of June 2026, up 44% on a year earlier, and 64% of these were paper applications.