The average cost of divorce in the UK

I’ve just received a copy of the survey conducted recently for the Legal Services Board (LSB). The LSB wish to understand how the price of common legal services purchased by individual consumers changes over time and this research sought to establish a set of baseline prices paid for a number of relatively straight forward scenarios.
Here are some snapshots regarding the cost of divorce: These are the average costs where the divorce does not end up in court.

What is most interesting to me, is how law firms prefer to represent the client as a solicitor and refer them away from the firm for mediation. Is this because they make more money that way, or simply because they are attracting clients who don’t yet know that they need a mediator?
If Mediators became the gatekeepers to divorce, would that change?

The full report for this research has now been published on the LSB’s website, and you can access it by using the following link:
https://research.legalservicesboard.org.uk/wp-content/media/Prices-of-Individual-Consumer-Legal-Services.pdf