Who We Are
St. James's Place (SJP) is a leading Wealth Management company which works in partnership to plan, grow and protect our clients' financial futures. We deliver personalised, face-to-face financial advice to our clients, who trust us to manage their money to reach their goals.
*The Trainee Solicitor Graduate Programme:
Assessment Centre:*
Monday 15th December 2025
The Trainee Solicitor Graduate Programme within our Legal (GCD) Function offers an excellent grounding in the fundamental principles of corporate law whilst studying for your Solicitors Qualifying Examinations (SQE) to become a qualified solicitor in England and Wales.
Based in our offices in Cirencester, you will be working across our Legal team supporting our Lawyers on a range of projects covering corporate, commercial, contentious legal matters. This is a fantastic opportunity to gain exposure to the breadth of commercial law before specialising later in your career.
All graduate positions are offered on a permanent contract. Upon successful completion of the programme, individuals continue in their roles within the organisation, equipped with the experience and insight gained throughout the Graduate Programme.
*Main Purpose of Job:*
Helping the business to achieve its corporate objectives by effectively managing and mitigating legal risk and by providing legal advice which is accessible, timely and cost effective and which adds real value to the business.
To provide guidance and assistance to the St. James's Place Partnership on relevant legal issues.
*Key Responsibilities of the Job:*
* To assist members of the Legal team with projects in different business divisions (e.g. People, Commercial Business Partnering, Facilities) and their day-to-day work on request including review of supplier/outsourcer contracts, adviser contracts, and supporting/shadowing the lawyers on litigation with external counsel.
* To provide legal support to the business and Partnership via the Legal Helpline, responding directly to queries where appropriate and redirecting queries to lawyers in the Legal Department where particular specialist advice is required.
* To manage and investigate pension death benefit claims to ensure the Pension Death Benefit Committee has sufficient information available for a decision to be made on the distribution of such benefits.
* To review potential recruit's existing contracts and report on restrictive covenants and data protection and confidentiality provisions to ensure the Field Management Team are aware of any restrictions that need to be placed on such recruit's future activities.
* To help ensure that the Department's standard forms, precedents and intranet documents are up to date.
You will be required to develop and maintain a broad understanding of:-
* SJP culture and values, and champion these in your role
* The operations of St. James's Place and the Partnership in order to be able to analyse and assist with a wide variety of legal issues raised via the Legal Helpline
* The requirements of the Financial Ombudsman Service
* The requirements of the Pension Ombudsman Service
* The requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 in order to be able to advise appropriately on data protection issues and ensure the business complies with any subject access requests submitted by clients, employees and Partners.
*What we're looking for:*
* A recent graduate (or completing your studies in 2026) with a law degree and a commitment to becoming a qualified solicitor.
* Able to explain a range of legal issues in a way that can be easily understood by non-lawyers.
* Able to deal professionally and diplomatically with a wide range of callers to the Legal Helpline, some of whom can be upset, irate or frustrated. Having an adaptive style that changes for the audience, with the scale of the threat and with the importance of the issues concerned.
* Able to calm colleagues, take sufficient information to understand their issue and be able to provide appropriate guidance immediately or after a period of consideration.
* Able to politely defend your position when challenged.
* Able to absorb, understand and analyse a wide variety of legal issues encountered by the business and the Partnership and offer pragmatic and commercial solutions.
* Be risk sensitive, but not risk averse. Develop an understanding of the tolerance to risk within the business and then tailoring guidance to be empathetic with the assessment made.
* Able to recognise when and where specialist input may be required and to refer matters to lawyers within the Legal Department when appropriate.
*Special requirements:*
Please note that you will be based at our offices in Cirencester, Gloucestershire and will be required in the office a minimum of 2-3 days each week and more when the business requires it.
This programme is due to last for 3 years. If your right to work is based on a Visa that will expire before the end of the programme, it may not be possible to employ you in the role as at present, this programme does not meet the minimum salary thresholds required for skilled worker visa sponsorship under the UK Home Office guidelines. As a result, we're unable to accept applications from those requiring visa sponsorship in order to complete the programme.