With Brexit just over six weeks away, some EU-national trainees are voicing their concerns about whether they will be able to take up their UK contracts after Britain leaves the European Union.

One major area of concern is whether trainees living on the continent, who have already been offered contracts, will need to get visas to work in the UK.

A partner who oversees graduate recruitment in the London office of one US firm and asked not to be named, said he has been approached by a number of EU nationals worried that Brexit will hinder their ability to join the firm as planned.

He added that he was unsure what assurances could be given to those who had been offered contracts since the Brexit process began, that they would still be able to take them up.

The partner said: "We're not allowed to discriminate when we hire, so we had to ignore Brexit. So you hire people but then the whole situation changes. They were entitled to work in the UK when they were hired.

"Are we now obliged to take every reasonable step to help them work here? Are firms going to take a hard line or is it a condition that they have to have the right to work here to accept the position? I just don't know.

"A lot of the trainees are in a bit of a panic. We must not be the only firm this is happening to. You take an interest in these people and get to know them, and then you find that the situation is kind of grave."

Craig Montgomery, disputes partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, who is responsible for trainees who have accepted training contracts, said: "Nobody knows what the situation will be just yet, but we're an international business so a lot of our trainees will need visas to work in the UK in the same way as our secondees who work overseas will.

"If Brexit changes mean that more visas are required, we will accommodate that. The more pressing issue is if they all need to get visas at short notice. You can't apply for a visa while you're here as a student. You'd need to go home, apply and come back when it goes through. If everyone needs a visa overnight it won't be easy, but that is the government's responsibility, not ours."

But Euan Smith, head of employment energy and corporate immigration at Pinsent Masons, said: "EU countries are not visa countries. For EU nationals, that's not going to make a difference in the short term.

"Post-January 2021, it's potentially going to be a much more challenging environment. But in the period up to then, for EU nationals the situation should be very manageable.

"The long-term position is more interesting. The managed immigration transition period lasts until December 2020. After that, the government intends to use legislation to make a new policy on immigration. It's possible that this will be similar to what is in place for non-EU people."

Smith said that with the government's proposed plans to implement an immigration policy based on salary: "You might say, well, trainees in City firms will be over the necessary £30,000 threshold, so that's not a worry for them. That may well be the case, but of course that is the great unknown."

Linklaters' London graduate recruitment partner Alison Wilson said: "Based on our preparations to date, we don't expect our trainee recruitment to be affected. We are continuing to offer training contracts to EU students and are confident that we will continue to recruit our trainees from a broad selection of backgrounds to serve our clients in the way we do now." 

And Euan Graham, head of HR at Norton Rose Fulbright, said: "We have run a series of briefing sessions for our EU employees to keep them updated on developments and their options under the current rules. We have also provided sessions for each person with an immigration lawyer to go through their application options and paperwork.

"The firm also offered to pay for pre-settled or settled status applications, although the government has now scrapped those fees. Additionally, we are providing regular updates to the HR team to ensure that they can handle queries from colleagues."