Shop staff at Pret a Manger are to receive their third pay rise in a year.

The average pay base will have increased by 19% in the twelve months up to April at the British coffee and takeaway food chain.

But the latest hike is to ensure the company does not fall foul of a boost to the minimum wage, which will change by law on 1 April.

The latest announcement means its worst-paid staff will get an increase of 2.9%, from £10.30 an hour to £10.60 an hour.

Above inflation pay boost in last year

Nearly 8,000 (7,870) of Pret’s UK shop staff are to receive an additional 3% pay rise from 1 April, in addition to the 5% rise from December 2022.

Next month, typical pay will grow to a range between £10.60 and £11.90 an hour, up from an hourly rate between £10.30 and £11.55.

Barista pay is slightly higher and will increase from between £10.85 and £12.50 an hour to between £11.20 and £12.85. Pay rates depend on location and experience.

The 19% total pay rise over the last year far surpasses the rate of inflation, which stood at 10.1% in the year up to January.

Pret said pay was being upped in an effort to support staff with the high cost of living. The company also gives free food to employees and introduced a discounts portal offering supermarket items and other goods at a lower cost.

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Industrial relations in Britain are at their most fractious since 1989

Battle of the pay increases

There are 429 Pret shops in the UK, with 121 overseas. The firm plans to double in size by 2026.

Pret is just one of a number of large employers to raise wages as workers pay more for goods and bills, and competition to attract staff remains high.

While the number of job vacancies has declined, unemployment, at 3.7% is still near a low not seen since 1974.

Other food retailers such as Sainsbury’s and Tesco have also upped pay for its shop workers.

Sainsbury’s staff outside London should now get at least £11 an hour, up from £10.25, while those working in the capital saw see their hourly wage rise from £11.30 to £11.95, the company said.

Tesco last month increased hourly pay for shop floor staff by 7% to a minimum of £11.02 an hour. Like Pret, this is the company’s third pay rise in a year.

The national living wage – which is independently calculated based on what people need to live on – will rise to £10.42 an hour from April, an increase of 9.7%.

Read more:
Sunak says pay rises will fuel inflation

Higher wages have been a concern for the Bank of England in its effort to bring inflation down to 2%.

“We are concerned about persistence [of inflation] and that’s why, frankly, we raised interest rates this time,” the Bank of England governor told the Treasury select committee last month.

“I am very uncertain, particularly about price-setting and wage-setting in this country. We have got the largest upside skew in our forecasts that we have ever had on inflation,” Andrew Bailey said.