SQE1 from January 2027: 340 Questions and Subjects Split by Session

On 10 September 2026 the SRA announced what it calls "the first in a series of improvements" to the SQE: from the January 2027 sitting, each Functioning Legal Knowledge paper falls from 180 to 170 questions, so SQE1 as a whole falls from 360 to 340. The time does not change, so you get a little longer for every question. And for the first time the subjects are grouped by session: you will know which areas of law come in the morning and which in the afternoon. The official explanation is candidate feedback that the assessment felt rushed. This guide sets out exactly what changes and what does not, the new session map, what it does to your pace, the FLK1 and FLK2 content in the specification that applies from 1 September 2026, and the first dates under the new format. The SQE assessment website (sqe.sra.org.uk) now sits behind a security check we did not bypass, so its pages are quoted from Wayback Machine captures, with the capture date given. ProSyllabus is an independent study site. We are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) or Kaplan, which delivers the SQE for the SRA; every rule below is quoted or summarised from their published pages, and the SRA decides every application.

SRA news, 10 September 2026; SQE website news, Wayback capture 22 Sep 2026. Seconds per question are our arithmetic.

The SQE website gives the new session map. It is the same for every candidate, and within a session the questions still arrive in random order. The SRA's own September update describes it as "FLK topics divided between morning and afternoon sessions".

Three things follow from the map, and they are our reading rather than anything the SRA has said. First, Solicitors Accounts is split: its wills and estates side sits with Wills and Trusts in the FLK2 morning, and its conveyancing side sits with Property Practice in the afternoon. Revise each half beside its partner subject. Second, the two practice-heavy FLK1 areas (Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution) now share a session with Legal Services, where much of the regulatory and ethics content lives, while the "doctrinal" subjects (Contract, Tort, the constitution) move together to the afternoon. Third, a candidate who fails one session's subjects cannot resit just that session: the resit unit is still the whole paper, FLK1 or FLK2.

Each session is still 153 minutes. With 90 questions that was 102 seconds a question; with 85 it is 108 seconds — six seconds more, or about 8.5 minutes of slack across a session if you keep the old pace. That is our arithmetic, but it matches why the SRA made the change: candidates told it SQE1 felt rushed. The calculator below turns the timing into checkpoints you can practise with.

The session map changes when subjects are tested, not what is tested. The content is set by the SQE1 Assessment Specification applicable from 1 September 2026 (updated April 2026). It is closed book, every question is a single best answer from five options, and the standard is Level 3 of the SRA's Threshold Standard: a newly qualified solicitor. A case name or statutory provision must be known only where it is the normal shorthand for a principle, area of law, rule or procedural step (the specification's own examples are Rylands v Fletcher, CPR Part 36 and a section 25 notice); otherwise you need not recall case names or cite statutory or regulatory authorities. The table lists each area, with the points most prep material misses.

Criminal Liability — the offences. The FLK2 page as captured by the Wayback Machine on 13 March 2026 lists: assault and battery, and the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 sections 47, 20 and 18; theft (Theft Act 1968 section 1), robbery (section 8), burglary (section 9) and aggravated burglary (section 10); criminal damage, simple and aggravated, and arson; homicide, including murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter (unlawful act and gross negligence); and fraud by false representation, by abuse of position and by failing to disclose information. The general defences listed are intoxication and self-defence, with loss of control and diminished responsibility as partial defences to murder. The same page also lists parties (principal offender and accomplices) and the inchoate offence of attempt. Sexual offences are not on the list, whatever older course outlines say. Check the live FLK2 page before you rely on this list, because we could not retrieve the September 2026 version.

Source: booking-windows page, Wayback capture 20 July 2026 — the latest capture available, so dates the page then showed as TBC are marked TBC here. That capture said the January 2027 seat-reservation form would go out on 21 September 2026, deadline 24 September; a coaching site that says it read the live page on 20 September gives 22 September, "updated from 21 September". The same site reports that booking closes at 5pm on 23 November 2026, that results are due on 9 March 2027, and that limited remaining seats can be booked directly between 19 and 23 November. These are reported dates: the SQE website sits behind a security check and no capture we could read carries them, so confirm them in your SQE account. The SRA's September update says only that January 2027 booking information is "now live". As a rule of thumb from the SQE website: booking closes about five weeks before a sitting, and SQE1 results come five to six weeks after it. The law assessed is the law as it stood four calendar months before the first assessment in the window, which is why the January 2027 cut-off is 11 September 2026.

Our suggestions, not the SRA's:
1. Re-time your mocks. Any mock of 90 questions in 153 minutes is now slightly harsh. Cut to 85, or keep 90 and add about nine minutes. Build the habit of the new checkpoints.
2. Mock by session, not just by paper. The morning and afternoon now have different subject mixes, so a mock that mixes Contract into a Business Law session no longer reflects the day.
3. Pair Solicitors Accounts with its context. Revise the wills half with Wills and Trusts, and the property half with conveyancing.
4. Do not bank on a lighter paper. The blueprint is unchanged: 20 fewer questions means each question carries a little more weight, not that any area is dropped.
5. Use the official samples. The SQE website publishes 90 original sample questions and 130 pre-tested questions, 220 in all. There are no released past papers.