The Living Wage Foundation has increased the UK Living Wage to £9 per hour, an increase of 25p per hour, with a 35p increase on the London rate to £10.55 per hour. The UK rate is £1.17 per hour more than the government minimum wage (for over 25s) and the London Living Wage is £2.72 higher.
Over 4,700 employers across the UK, including over 1,500, in London pay the Living Wage and an estimated 180,000 workers are set for a pay boost.
The Living Wage Foundation is calling on all major employers to help tackle this rising problem of low pay by committing to go beyond the government minimum and pay a wage their staff can really live on. Research for the Living Wage Foundation published today found that if local authorities, universities and sports facilities (including football clubs) in towns and cities across the country signed up to the Living Wage, an additional 480,000 low paid workers could benefit.
The announcements come after research published by KPMG found over a fifth of jobs pay less than the real Living Wage, with 1.2m more jobs paying below the Living Wage since 2012.
More than 1,200 employers have signed up to go beyond the government minimum to pay the real Living Wage in the last year, including Liverpool Football Club, University of Bristol, Sheffield City Region and Aberystwyth University.
They join over 4,700 employers across the UK, including over a third of the FTSE 100, household names like IKEA, Aviva, Nationwide and Google, as well as thousands of small businesses, who are choosing to pay the real Living Wage to ensure all staff, including sub-contracted workers, earn a wage that meets the real cost of living.
Living Wage Foundation director, Tess Lanning, said: ‘The Living Wage campaign is about tackling the rising problem of people paid less than they need to live. Responsible businesses know that the government minimum is not enough to live on, and today’s new Living Wage rates will provide a boost for hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the UK.’
Heathrow airport chief financial officer Javier Echave said: ‘Our colleagues are our most valued asset and deserve nothing less than the Living Wage.
‘Embracing the Living Wage is not just about values, it’s about value. Fair pay drives engagement, higher productivity and better service to our passengers – a win-win solution to all. Later this year, Heathrow will be publishing a roadmap on how we will work with our directly engaged supply chain to ensure they also guarantee employees are paid the Living Wage by late 2020.’
This is a view echoed by Marco Gentile, president EMEIA, Burberry, said: ‘At Burberry, we are proud to be a Living Wage accredited employer in the UK. Paying the Living Wage is an investment in our employees and a recognition of the valuable contribution they make to our UK business – whether they are building a career at Burberry or working for one of our contractor partners.’
In the autumn Budget, the Chancellor confirmed that the statutory national living wage (NLW) paid to workers aged over 25 would rise by 4.9% from £7.83 to £8.21 from April 2019. The 21-244 minimum hourly rate will increase to £7.70 from the current £7.3[1]
[1] Reproduced from Croner-i