Allen & Overy (A&O), Macfarlanes and Barlow Lyde & Gilbert have all confirmed their trainee retention figures for autumn 2011.

A&O is set to retain 38 of its 53 newly-qualified lawyers (NQs), giving the magic circle firm a retention rate of 72%, after 39 offers were made, marking a decrease on the firm's spring round this year when 88% of trainees were kept on.

Elsewhere, Macfarlanes has offered 22 of its 24 trainees a job (92%), while Barlows has posted a retention rate of 80% after seeing all eight of its offers accepted from the firm's 10 trainees qualifing this September.

Barlows training principal John Flaherty said: "We are committed to developing and retaining lawyers of the highest standard, so we are very pleased to have offered so many of our trainees positions.

"Our core focus is in the insurance and dispute resolution markets and retaining these talented individuals will help us to maintain our strength in these areas for the future."

Last week Slaughter and May confirmed a 100% retention rate for its autumn intake, with the firm keeping on all 59 of its NQs.

The news comes after A&O announced last month that it is scaling back the number of London training contracts it offers by 14% for those applying from this November, with the magic circle firm set to take on 90 trainees per year from 2014 – down from the current figure of 105.

For more, see A&O cuts number of City training contracts on offer by 14%.