Celebrating 25 years of the real Living Wage

Citizens UK brought together churches, mosques, schools and other local institutions across East London together to talk about the issues affecting their communities and one issue came up again and again: low pay.  At the time, the government's minimum was just £3.70 an hour and cleaners working at some of the richest financial institutions in the world were struggling to keep their heads above water.  

Together, low paid workers began to call on all major employers in the capital to pay their staff a decent wage which you could live on – a real living wage - not just the legal minimum. 

In 2003, local people came together to call on a major UK bank to pay a real Living Wage to all their cleaners. One of those cleaners, Abdul Durrant, addressed the bank’s annual general meeting. Standing before senior executives and shareholders, he said: ‘we work in the same office but live in different worlds. Let me tell you what it’s like to work on £4.50 an hour and bring up 6 children.’ 

The moment made headlines, and within eighteen months the bank - as well as and neighbouring banks - had raised the pay of their cleaners. It marked a turning point for the Living Wage campaign. 

The launch of the first UK-wide ‘real Living Wage’ in 2011 saw the movement grow rapidly. Set above the minimum wage (£6.08 per hour), it was £7.20 an hour nationally and £8.30 in London. The Living Wage Foundation was also established to recognise and celebrate the employers choosing to go beyond the legal minimum. 

London 2012 became the world’s first Living Wage Olympics. After years of campaigning, Citizens UK successfully persuaded the Mayor of London to ensure that everyone was paid a London Living Wage for the London 2012 Olympics. Thousands of local workers benefitted from the creation of new jobs, and millions of pounds were added to the local economy. 

In 2016, the government increased the minimum wage for over 25-year-olds (now over 23-year-olds) and called the new higher rate a ‘National Living Wage’. While challenging for our movement, this moment reflected our growing influence on UK wages.

Despite the rebrand, the government’s ‘National Living Wage’ remains the legal minimum, with the real Living Wage still the only wage to reflect the cost of living. As a result of this difference, more employers accredit, recognising the numerous business benefits of paying a decent wage and wanted to get involved. 

The Living Wage campaign officially becomes the real Living Wage campaign to help differentiate it from the government minimum.  

With over one billion workers worldwide in working poverty, the Foundation began exploring the possibility of developing a global, collaborative approach to delivering a Living Wage. Today, we have connected with local Living Wage movements around the world to grow Living Wage initiatives, and the issue of Living Wage continues to move up the global agenda as a core solution to tackling inequality.  

The Living Wage Foundation launches the Living Hours accreditation to tackle widespread insecurity over working hours and shift periods. The scheme requires organisations to pay the real Living Wage and commit to provide workers with contracts that reflect hours worked, at least 16 hours a week, and at least 4 weeks’ shift notice. We now have a network of over 200 Living Hours Employers, and thanks to the scheme, over 80,000 UK workers have the security and stability they need to thrive.  

The Living Wage Foundation also expanded its reach and took up a place-based approach in 2019 to help put more money into local people’s pockets and the local economy. Dundee became the UK’s first ‘Living Wage City’ and we began to offer the Living Wage Places model. There are now 17 Recognised Living Wage Places across the UK, and 11 cities are committed to growing the Living Wage, including Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Bristol.  

The Living Wage Foundation launches a ‘Living Wage for Key Workers’ campaign, and St Antony’s school release a song titled ‘Another round of applause’ which emphasises the need to pay our cleaners, carers, and other essential workers a decent wage.  
 
Simultaneously, our movement pf accredited employers grow by nearly 40% over the course of the pandemic. 

We build on the success of the Living Wage and Living Hours by providing the Living Pension: An accreditation to tackle the growing crisis of pension poverty in the UK. Recognising that millions in the UK will not save enough for an acceptable standard of living in retirement, the Living Pension accreditation sets an annual savings target for Living Wage Employers who want to provide workers with financial security now and in the future. The Living Pension network is now made up of nearly 100 accredited employers. 

As of today, more than 16,000 employers across the UK have chosen to pay the real Living Wage, helping to lift pay for hundreds of thousands of workers each year.  
 
Together, the Living Wage movement has transformed lives, having delivered billions (4.1bn) in pay rises for half a million low paid workers. 1 in 7 UK workers now work for an accredited Living Wage Employer and the Living Wage brand has gone mainstream with 75% public recognition, all thanks to ordinary people coming together to demand fair pay.