London Living Wage increases by 4.6 per cent

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced the London Living Wage has increased from £9.75 to £10.20 per hour.

The 4.6 per cent rise marks the first time the city’s Living Wage has increased to more than £10.00 per hour.

Rise

Khan also announced a rise in the number of businesses that have signed up to pay their employees London’s hourly rate over the past year, with an additional 470 employers signing up. As a result, London’s total number of accredited businesses now stands at 1,502. The city now accounts for nearly 42 per cent of the UK’s businesses paying the Living Wage.

London has seen a 50 per cent rise in the number of businesses paying the Living Wage since Khan became mayor. The Southbank Centre, the National Gallery, and financial services group Societe Generale are among those that have become accredited businesses in the past 12 months.

Khan is now aiming to tackle issues such as in-work poverty and wage discrepancies between ethnicities in the city by urging more businesses to sign up to pay the London Living Wage.

He will also be helping employers to improve skills development, diversity, flexible working, and health and wellbeing for their employees through his Good Work Standard, which is set to launch in 2018.

Successful

Commenting on how signing up to pay the London Living Wage has benefited businesses, Khan said: “Paying the London Living Wage is not only the action of a responsible organisation, but a successful one too. Many of the accredited employers I speak to tell me of the increased productivity and reduced staff turnover that they’ve experienced since signing up.”