Thomson Reuters UK Legal Market 2026: Net Spend +5 pts Overall — Regulatory at +28 pts, Insurance at −8 pts; Commercial Judgement Now Outranks Technical Expertise

Thomson Reuters' State of the UK Legal Market 2026 (July 29) found UK net spend anticipation at +5 percentage points — a return to pre-pandemic baseline — but with sharp divergence by practice area: Regulatory +28 pts (rising to +38 pts among finance sector clients), Labour & Employment +14 pts, Insurance −8 pts, IP −5 pts, Disputes −5 pts. 82% of UK legal buyers have cross-border needs spanning 30 countries on average; 44% plan to increase international spend in the next 12 months. On adviser selection, quality and effectiveness remain the top criterion (39%), followed by cost (28%) and efficiency (17%). But the fastest-growing drivers of favourability are business acumen (37% cite it as a driver) and commerciality (15%) — confirming that expertise is now table stakes, and commercial judgement is the differentiator. Only 21% of UK buyers are highly satisfied with their firm's innovative capabilities, compared with 33% globally. 43% of GCs cite technology and automation as a primary efficiency lever, up from 25% a year ago. For BD directors: the Regulatory and L&E spend signals are operational: those are the teams to resource, those are the sectors to target in outreach, and that is where rate protection will hold. The business acumen signal means pitch content should be organised around business outcome, not legal quality.