£3.85bn boost | 16,000 employers now paying the real Living Wage

More than 16,000 UK employers have now signed up to pay the real Living Wage - the UK’s only wage rate based on the cost of living - new figures show.

This milestone comes as a new study from Cardiff Business School reveals the movement’s far-reaching impact on workers and employers, with more than half a million workers having benefitted from pay increases thanks to the Living Wage scheme.

Recent Living Wage accreditations include the National Theatre, Queen’s University Belfast, the Imperial War Museum and Barts NHS Trust, one of the largest NHS trusts in England, which employs thousands of staff and runs five hospitals in London. These employers join household names such as Ikea, Aviva and Fred Perry who pay their staff the Living Wage.

The new study from Cardiff Business School shows that, since 2011, the real Living Wage has given over £3.8bn back to Britain’s lowest paid workers, with 15 per cent of workers receiving an hourly pay increase of 20 per cent or more.