Sainsbury’s to increase hourly pay rate

Sainsbury’s has announced it will increase wages by 5% from £12 an hour to £12.60 by August.

The rise in hourly pay was response to ‘particularly tough cost inflation’, the supermarket giant stated, after retailers warned prices were likely to rise later this year.

The supermarket group said: “We will raise pay for our hourly-paid colleagues by 5% in the year ahead, split into two separate increases to help manage a particularly tough cost inflation environment.”

Wages for Sainsbury’s and Argos workers will rise from £12 to £12.45 per hour in March before a further increase to £12.60.

The rise maintains the hourly rate’s margin in relation to the national living wage, which is set to rise to £12.21 in April from £11.44.

For Sainsbury’s workers in London, pay will initially increase from £13.15 to £13.70. The hourly rate will then be lifted to £13.85.

Sainsbury’s pay rise will put its staff towards the top of earners among big food retailers, in which Lidl and Aldi are considered the highest payers with customer service roles in stores worth up to £14 an hour.

The latest official figures showed that UK inflation is rising at the fastest pace since March 2024, driven by fuel and clothing.

Sainsbury’s put the pay rise within the context of rising price inflation. The British Retail Consortium lobby group has warned “there is little hope of prices going anywhere but up” in shops as retailers manage measures announced in the autumn Budget, including the increase in national insurance for employers. Sainsbury’s last year said the Budget would cost it £140 million in 2025-2026.

In a trading update for the key Christmas period, Sainsbury’s said it expected its full-year profit to rise by around 7% to more than £1bn.

For the festive period, comparable sales rose by 2.8%, lifted by food.

Sainsbury’s employs more than 160,000 people in the UK. About 118,000 staff will gain the pay rise. Tesco is the largest employer in the sector with about 330,000 staff and pays an hourly rate between £12 and £12.50.

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