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Real Living Wage rises to £14.10 an hour

By CVTailorly Research Desk · Published 17 October 2026

This article was researched with AI assistance. Figures are checked against the sources linked below.

The voluntary real Living Wage has risen to £14.10 an hour across the UK and £15.45 an hour in London, the Living Wage Foundation announced on 15 October 2026. Employers pay it by choice rather than by law, but the foundation says almost half a million people working for nearly 17,000 accredited employers are set for a pay rise. For jobseekers, the new rates are a useful benchmark when comparing pay in entry-level and lower-paid roles.

Key figures

The Living Wage Foundation announcement (15 October 2026) set the 2026-27 rates at £14.10 an hour across the UK, an increase of 65p (4.8%), and £15.45 an hour in London, also up 65p (4.4%). The Resolution Foundation briefing note (15 October 2026), which calculates the rates on the foundation's behalf, gives the same figures and says they apply from 15 October 2026.

Compared with the legal minimum. The National Living Wage, the legal minimum for workers aged 21 and over, has been £12.71 an hour since April 2026, according to GOV.UK's minimum wage rates page (checked 17 October 2026). The Living Wage Foundation says a full-time worker on the new real Living Wage would earn "over £2,700 a year more" than a worker on the current government minimum, and over £5,300 a year more in London. It also says full-time workers on the real Living Wage will receive a pay rise worth over £1,250 this year.

Who pays it. According to the announcement, nearly 17,000 employers are accredited, including half the FTSE 100, and one in seven UK employees works for an accredited Living Wage Employer. Over 2,000 new employers signed up over the past year, including Uniqlo, the Department for Business and Trade and Coventry Building Society. The foundation also says 4.4 million workers are paid below the real Living Wage, and cites its own recent research finding that 61% of low-paid workers have cut back on food or heating, fallen behind on bills or housing payments, or taken out a payday loan to cover essentials over the past year, and that 37% have used a foodbank.

When it applies. The real Living Wage is voluntary. The foundation's explainer page (checked 17 October 2026) says accredited employers now have six months to put the new rates in place, by 1 May 2027.

How the rates are worked out. The Resolution Foundation says this year's rates are the first to use a new "blended" methodology: the average of one calculation based on the Minimum Income Standard and one based on relative poverty thresholds. Its briefing assumes full-time work of 37.5 hours a week, apart from second earners in families with children and single parents, who are assumed to work part-time. In the foreword, Professor Nick Pearce, chair of the Living Wage Commission, explains that for each of the last three years the commission used a "shock absorber", in practice uprating the rates by CPI inflation plus 3%, and that the new method is intended to avoid the need for one as far as possible.

Professor Pearce also sets out the economic backdrop. He writes that "The rates should ensure a small real-terms wage increase for most workers", as the Bank of England projects inflation to rise to around 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2026 and 4.2% in the first quarter of 2027. He notes that annual growth in average weekly earnings, excluding bonuses, was 3.5% in the three months to July 2026, and that the National Living Wage rose by 4.1% this year. The size of next April's National Living Wage rise "remains uncertain", he says, although the Low Pay Commission's central estimate in April 2026 was 3.7%.

Emily Sawh, Co-Director of the Living Wage Foundation, said: "Today’s increase to the real Living Wage will make a massive difference to hundreds of thousands of workers and their families up and down the country."

What it means for jobseekers

Know which rate is the law. Only the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage are legal requirements. The real Living Wage is a voluntary commitment, so an employer that is not accredited does not have to pay it. If a job advert mentions the real Living Wage, it is reasonable to ask whether the employer is accredited and when the new rate will apply to you, given that accredited employers have until 1 May 2027.

Compare offers by the hour. When pay is quoted as an annual salary, working out the hourly rate, using the hours in the contract, makes it easier to compare with the £14.10 benchmark, or £15.45 in London. Remember to check shift patterns, paid breaks and travel costs, which can change what a job is worth to you.

Use accreditation as a search filter. The Living Wage Foundation's website lists accredited employers. The announcement names accredited employers including IKEA, Aviva and LUSH, alongside thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. If pay is a priority, checking that list before you apply is one way to narrow your search.

Make each application specific. Employers quoted in the announcement link paying the real Living Wage to keeping staff for longer. JS Pelland, Executive Director of Eland Cables, said retention there had fallen below 70%, adding: "Since introducing the Real Living Wage, we’ve seen that rise to around 90%." Whichever employer you apply to, a CV that clearly matches the job advert helps. Our cleaner CV example shows how to present reliability, COSHH knowledge and availability, and there are examples for other roles too, such as barista, care assistant and retail assistant.

From CVTailorly (our own tool, optional): tailor your CV to a job ad using the advert’s wording, or run a CV check before you send an application. Plans and prices are on our pricing page.

Sources

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