Although demand for in-house legal roles remains below the benchmark for all positions, legal departments cannot afford to stand still. According to the report “Salaries and Trends in Enterprises” by Grafton Recruitment, companies are focusing on key competencies, reshaping how teams are built and differentiating pay levels and growth dynamics depending on function and responsibility. Demand is rising for specialists in ESG, environmental protection, compliance, tax law, and energy law.
Demand for roles in legal departments
Demand for legal roles in companies remains below the average level for all positions. The “Salaries and Trends in Enterprises” report shows that in the first three quarters of last year, the demand index for employees in legal departments stood at 0.67, compared with a benchmark of 1.01. This is also lower than in previous years, though still higher than in 2020. The result points to a more cautious approach to expanding highly specialized teams.
“In recent years, companies have been recruiting more carefully, focusing on developing key competencies. Although the number of job offers remains relatively stable, significantly lower recruitment activity can be seen in departments such as IT, audit, finance, HR, marketing, and legal services. In many cases, this is the result of earlier team expansion—organizations no longer see the need to grow these teams further. Ongoing automation and the transfer of tasks to systems also play an important role,”
says Magdalena Głuchowska, Lead Recruitment Expert at Grafton Recruitment.
Which specializations are in demand?
Demand in legal departments is clearly shifting toward new areas of specialization. Grafton Recruitment’s data point to growing interest in ESG and environmental protection, compliance, tax law, and energy law—primarily as a result of tightening requirements and frequent legislative changes.
The role of in-house lawyers has also evolved. It is no longer limited to formal legal support but increasingly involves ongoing cooperation with the business, participation in decision-making processes, and advising on regulatory risk. At a time when cost control is becoming increasingly important, companies are more willing than in previous years to invest in training for junior employees. Thanks to modern tools—including AI-based solutions—being used in repetitive and simple processes, less experienced employees are now taking on more complex tasks.
“In professional services, including legal functions, we are dealing with a competence-driven market that favors specialists and translates into attractive job offers. Although we see a decline in the number of vacancies and overall demand, legal departments—like entire organizations—are facing challenges that increase demand for specific specializations and force constant knowledge updates. This applies, among other things, to data protection and cybersecurity, which—amid a growing number of incidents and stricter regulations—are becoming one of the key risk areas,”
explains Michał Piernik, Division & Business Development Manager at Grafton Recruitment.
Salaries in legal departments
Pay levels in legal departments remain strongly dependent on location and scope of responsibility. Differences between cities are visible across management, expert, and junior roles.
For Legal Directors, salaries in Warsaw reach up to PLN 40,000 gross per month, while in the Tricity and Wrocław the maximum is around PLN 35,000. In Katowice and Kraków, pay at this management level starts at PLN 20,000 and can reach PLN 32,000.
The Head of Compliance role also commands high salaries and is among the best-paid specialist positions in legal departments, particularly in major cities. In Warsaw, salaries reach PLN 40,000, while in Łódź they range from PLN 25,000 to PLN 38,000. In cities such as Poznań and Kraków, maximum rates are slightly lower, at up to PLN 35,000. High pay is also available in data protection roles—up to PLN 22,000 in Warsaw and PLN 18,000 in the Tricity and Wrocław.
Junior roles are paid significantly less. In Warsaw, salaries range from PLN 7,500 to PLN 10,000, while in Katowice entry-level rates start at PLN 6,500. In Poznań, Wrocław, and the Tricity, the upper limit is also PLN 10,000, indicating relatively even pay levels among junior staff across cities.
Salary growth dynamics
Data on salary changes in legal departments show clear differences in the pace of pay growth across roles. The strongest dynamics are visible in operational positions and some mid-level roles.
The highest average salary increases compared with 2024 were recorded among legal assistants (9.4%). Strong growth was also seen for junior lawyers (8.8%), ESG managers (8.6%), and legal directors (8.1%). Relatively high increases also applied to lawyers (7.6%) and law-firm partners (6.8%). For senior lawyers, salary growth was more moderate at 5.5%, suggesting greater stability at higher experience and pay levels.
Although interest in certain specialist competencies grew in 2025, this did not always translate into uniform wage growth. For Heads of Compliance, the average increase was 4.9%, and for ESG specialists, 5%. The smallest changes were observed for data protection specialists (3.2%) and in-house lawyers (3.8%). Notably, compliance specialists were the only group to record a decline in salaries (-0.9%).
“In legal departments, we see strong differentiation in pay growth depending on the type of role and its importance within the organization. Increases at operational levels and among junior lawyers are partly driven by growing demand for support in day-to-day legal processes. For specialist roles, however—despite rising demand, particularly in ESG, compliance, and data protection—the pace of salary growth is clearly lower. This reflects a more cautious employer approach to budgeting expert roles and greater employment stability in these segments,”
concludes Michał Piernik, Division & Business Development Manager at Grafton Recruitment.
About the report: The Grafton Recruitment report is based on job-posting data and a quantitative employee survey. The analysis covered 4,975,256 job advertisements from a major Polish recruitment platform. Of these, 1,414,836 concerned the private sector. After deduplication, the final number of unique postings was 637,793. The study included positions reflected in Grafton Recruitment’s salary grids.
