Aldi UK has become the first supermarket to pay its starting store assistants a minimum of £11 per hour nationally, maintaining its position as the UK’s best paying grocer.
Around 26,000 store colleagues will benefit from the increase, which will also see starting store assistants within the M25 being paid £12.45 from 1 January 2023.
The new £11.00 an hour starting rate is over 15% higher than it was a year ago, representing a £81 million investment in colleague pay in the last 12 months.
Aldi will also be increasing the rates of pay for thousands of logistics colleagues, with starting salaries of at least £10.90, in line with the Real Living Wage.
The new rates are higher than the Real Living Wage that is set by the Living Wage Foundation.
“Just as we promise Aldi customers that we will always offer the lowest grocery prices in Britain, we are committed to being the highest-paying supermarket for our colleagues,” Aldi UK and Ireland CEO Giles Hurley said.
“We are incredibly proud of every single member of Team Aldi, and are pleased to become the first UK supermarket to pay a minimum of £11 per hour to all store sssistants, exceeding the Living Wage Foundation’s recommended Real Living Wage.”
The discount grocer is also the only supermarket to offer paid breaks, which for the average store colleague is worth an additional £871 annually.
Aldi has a total of over 40,000 colleagues and more than 970 stores in the UK.
