Making London a Living Wage City

With the Living Wage Foundation, we are working to make London a Living Wage City. This multi-year campaign will see us work to put £635m of wages back into the pockets of low-paid workers in London.

As part of this campaign, we are focusing on sectors where low pay is the most rampant, and where employers paying the real Living Wage can have the most impact in London. One of these sectors is health and social care.

Why health and social care?

The workforce in health and social care makes up nearly 10 per cent of London’s working population. However, 16.7 per cent of all jobs in the sector are paid below the London Living Wage.

In the NHS, while nationally agreed pay scales for directly employed staff allow them to meet their everyday needs, services such as cleaning, porters, catering and security are often outsourced and paid below these rates. Rates of pay and conditions are worse still in social care, as 42.3 per cent of all of London’s care workers earn less than the London Living Wage, and the sector in general has a staff turnover rate of 28.5 per cent.

Health and social care is a sector operating 24/7, and therefore one with the highest proportion of night-time workers in London (over 200,000 staff). Data from the GLA indicates that if you work at night, you are twice as likely to be paid below the Living Wage than if you do the same occupation during the day.

Action strand for health and social care

As part of the 'Making London a Living Wage City' campaign, we are supporting cross-sector coalitions to tackle low pay in London. These coalitions are made up of business leaders, workers, and key civil society groups who are coming together to make change.