A voluntary wage rate based on the cost of living, the ‘real Living Wage’ is overseen by the Living Wage Foundation and is paid by over 16,000 UK businesses.
Employers who pay the real Living Wage must implement the new rates for 2025/26 by 1 May 2026.
The increased rates for 2025/26 were announced in October 2025. Employers who participate in the scheme then had 6 months to implement the new rates from 1 November 2025.
The real Living Wage is set at £13.45 per hour across the UK (with a higher rate of £14.80 per hour in London) and applies to all workers over the age of 18 to recognise that young people face the same costs of living as older workers.
Half of the FTSE 100 companies, household names including Aviva, Everton FC and Ikea, as well as thousands of small businesses, have signed up to pay the real Living Wage and commit to pay at least the real Living Wage to all their staff as well as third-party contractors, such as cleaners and security guards.
The real Living Wage is not to be confused with the government’s National Living Wage (NLW) which is the legal minimum payable to workers aged 21 and over. The NLW increased on 1 April 2026 to the current rate of £12.71 per hour across the UK. There are also separate National Minimum Wage (NMW) rates for younger workers. From 1 April 2026, the NMW is £10.85 per hour for 18 – 20-year-olds and £8.00 per hour for 16 – 17-year-olds and apprentices under 19 or in the first year of their apprenticeship.
The Living Wage Foundation has highlighted that despite the increases in the NLW and NMW millions of workers are still short of a real living wage.
Participating Living Wage employers will need to ensure that their payroll teams put the new rates in place by 1 May 2026.
