The new assessment from the Living Wage Foundation for living wages in London and the UK was released on Tuesday (24th October). The new rate is £13.15 per hour for London and £12 per hour for the UK. This equates to approximately £25,500 and £23,500 per annum respectively (based on a 37.5 hour week), a 10% increase for the lowest paid workers.

Further research shows the Indeed Job Advertising site currently has over 108,000 job adverts based in London. 35% of these are advertised under the living wage.

This means OVER A THIRD of London based jobs will not provide an income sufficient to live without debt.

During the skills shortage of 2021 and 2022 employers were rushing to produce Employee Value Propositions, demonstrating their status as employers of choice. Now the volume of jobs has subsided it would appear that employees wellbeing and ability to meet the basic costs of living have become less important.

Many of those in a management or leadership role within an organisation should perhaps now be prompted to consider whether they have a moral obligation to ensure employees aren’t being pushed into debt and to enquire whether their employer is still meeting this minimum standard across all roles.