Lidl will raise wages for staff from March next year, which it says will make it the UK’s highest paying grocer.

Lidl has earmarked £18m to invest in its wages, which will see entry level pay at the discounter rise from £9.50 to £10.10 per hour outside of London at the start of its next financial year.

Entry-level workers living within the M25  wages will increase from £10.85 to £11.30, and colleagues will earn up to £11.40 and £12.25, depending on how long they have worked for Lidl.

This move by Lidl will deliver a pay rise of up to 6% for its entry-level employees, with over 80% of the discounter’s workforce in Britain, comprising over 21,000 employees, directly benefiting from the pay rise. 

Lidl has invested over £50m in hourly wage increases over the past five years, and said this latest uplift “recognises the hard work and dedication of frontline colleagues during the last 18 months of the pandemic.”

Lidl’s UK boss Christian Härtnagel said: “At Lidl, our frontline colleagues are the backbone of our business. They have worked tirelessly over the past 18 months of the Covid-19 crisis and are integral to our future success. 

“We have ambitious plans to grow our business across Great Britain, and to do that we need to ensure we attract and look after the best talent at every level of our business.  This year we feel incredibly lucky to be in a position as a business to go even further by making this significant investment in our incredible workforce, which will make us the best paying supermarket in the UK.”