International firm DLA Piper has increased newly-qualified pay for the second time in the past year, boosting salaries to £95,000 in London.

The firm has upped NQ rates by 8% from £88,000 in the capital, following an increase to £76,000 from September last year. Pay for those in DLA Piper’s regional offices have also gone up by 35% to £65,000.

UK managing partner Liam Cowell said the move is ‘a first step towards implementing a new, more holistic and value-based approach to pay decisions, aimed at fairly rewarding the contribution of our lawyers across all locations’. The firm’s regular annual salary review will take place in July, he added.

DLA Piper is the latest firm to wade into the ongoing NQ salary war, following US-headquartered firm Goodwin’s move last month to increase NQ salaries to £161,500 a year – the highest ever paid in the Square Mile.

Clyde & Co and Fieldfisher also announced big hikes in NQ pay last month, bumping salaries by 14% and 10% respectively to £80,000 and £85,000 in London.

Professional recruitment firm Robert Walters said last month that graduate lawyers were receiving anything between 15% and 50% salary increases compared to last year amid fierce competition for staff.

However, legal recruitment consultancy Edwards Gibson has warned that ‘history tells us that law firm salary wars don’t tend to end well for associates, and more importantly for law firm management they have always been a portent of a market correction’.