What do we do?

We believe in a society where in-work poverty
no longer exists.

At the Living Wage Foundation, our mission is to encourage employers to play their part in tackling in-work and post-work poverty and provide a decent standard of living by paying the real Living Wage, adopting Living Hours and Living Pensions as well as wider good employment practices.

We do this through:

Accreditation

We offer multiple employer accreditations to become an accredited:

Living Wage Employer and pay the independently-calculated real Living Wage rates every year to all their staff.
Living Hours Employer, committing to provide all staff secure working hours and shift patterns.
Living Pension Employer, adopting Living Pension measures for all their staff so that employees can meet their everyday needs in retirement.

We also offer a Service Provider Recognition Scheme and a Living Wage Funder scheme as well as regional and global initiatives. More on these below.

Intelligence

We coordinate the announcement of the real Living Wage rates each year, based on the best available evidence about living standards in the UK.

We also provide advice and support to employers implementing any of our accreditations. This includes best practice guides, case studies from leading employers, model procurement frameworks and access to specialist legal and HR advice.

We also provide evidence and research about the impact and benefits of a Living Wage and Living Hours to people, businesses and the economy.

Influence

We provide a forum for leading employers to publicly join the independent movement of organisations, businesses and people campaigning for a wage which is enough to live on.

We work with Principal Partners who bring financial and strategic support to our work.

We coordinate Living Wage Week every year, a UK-wide celebration of the Living Wage movement and our Living Wage Champion Awards, recognising those in our network who go above and beyond to promote the Living Wage, Living Hours, Living Pensions and other good work practices.