It’s been coming since 2008 when legal aid rates were changed and weren’t increased (even with inflation) until a couple of years ago following the well-publicised strike action. This meant that less and less legal graduates were attracted into the criminal legal profession. For over a decade the number of criminal pupillages and training contracts were vanishingly small meaning far too few (and increasingly fewer) people were entering the profession.
This didn’t matter as much while the trial backlog wasn’t being addressed (and was increasing) and during Covid when things slowed down even further - but since the pandemic there’s (very belatedly) been significant moves to start clearing the backlog, but there aren’t anything like the number of practitioners to keep up. There simply aren’t enough criminal solicitors and/or barristers to cope. This has obviously been accentuated by peoole leaving the professions by way of retirement, death and people moving into other, better rewarded areas of law.
So those that do practise in crime are mad busy, and certainly earning far more than they were a decade or so ago, but there simply aren’t enough of them - and that isn’t something to which there is any quick fix. You can’t just magic up criminal barristers out of nowhere.
