Sainsbury’s will give its 118,000 hourly-paid colleagues a 5% pay rise this year, as part of its wider transformation plans, and following a bumper Christmas period.
Colleagues across both Sainsbury’s and Argos will move from £12 to £12.45 per hour in March, and £13.15 to £13.70 for those based in London. With a further increase to £12.60 per hour in August and £13.85 for those based in London.
The increase is being split this year to allow Sainsbury’s to navigate a “challenging cost environment”. By August 2025, pay for hourly-paid colleagues across Sainsbury’s and Argos will have increased by 58% since 2018.
“Our people are fundamental to achieving our Next Level Sainsbury’s plan and we are pleased to announce that we will raise pay for our hourly-paid colleagues by five per cent in the year ahead, split into two separate increases to help manage a particularly tough cost inflation environment,” said Simon Roberts, chief executive of Sainsbury’s.
“We believe in rewarding our colleagues well for delivering leading service and productivity and we will be the best paying UK grocer from March.”
The pay rise comes after Sainsbury’s “biggest Christmas ever”, with grocery sales increasing 4% over the quarter, and volume sales 6% higher than two years ago. Argos had a Black Friday boost with a 1.1% jump in sales over the final weeks of 2024.
Read an extended company profile on Sainsbury’s and its sister company Argos in the first RetailX Europe Top1000 360° report.The two-page profile looks at how Argos and Sainsbury’s stand out in the Europe Top1000 2024 appearing in the Elite and Leading categories of the listing.
The wider report shares valuable insights into what makes this a compelling market for retailers, brands and marketplaces, and what works for the leading retailers that do well here. We explore how customer expectations vary by region and by country, with a focus on key ecommerce markets within Europe.
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