Please take this with a pinch of salt. Most of it is accurate, especially in the last section where firms are clear on their websites that they only recruit vac schemers, but things get more ambiguous in the first two sections. My main sources have been legal articles, but I've also combed through the TCLA forums to find where people have posted about speaking directly to grad rec and asking them this question. In a very few cases I've used Jessica's formula as a rough guide to work out how many places you could expect to be taken up by VS versus TC.
Be aware that in the second section, I've included a lot of American firms which technically have a direct TC route open (e.g. Akin Gump) but they only have 12 trainees, so you can expect pretty much all of those to have come from the VS. I just didn't want to say that you definitely
wouldn't be hired if you applied directly, so these firms aren't in the last section.
Also, this is a work in progress. I've left out a lot of firms which hopefully will be added later. Please let me know if anything is wrong/has changed/you have extra info! Again, some of my information may be a bit outdated and stats change year by year, so this is only intended to be a rough guide. Thanks to
@Adam Gilchrist for linking some useful sources.
Fair Proportion/All from Direct Training Contract
These firms recruit typically around half of their intake directly, ranging up to 100% for some firms.
Mostly from Vacation Scheme
These firms recruit 50-100% of their trainees from vacation schemes, but direct TC routes technically exist.
Only from Vacation Scheme
