Sainsbury’s to raise pay to £12.60 an hour

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said at the time said she had “decided the right thing to do was to ask businesses and the wealthiest in our country to pay a bit more”.

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 current hourly wage is higher than the National Living Wage of £11.44 an hour. Reeves announced in the Budget that it will increase to £12.21 from April.

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.

For people in London, pay will increase from £13.15 to £13.70. The hourly rate will then be lifted to £13.85.