Update: rises to the real Living Wage

Both the real Living Wage and the statutory National Living Wage are UK wide (the real Living Wage has a separate London rate)

On 15 October 2026 the Living Wage Foundation (LWF) announced new real Living Wage rates of £14.10 an hour across the UK and £15.45 an hour in London. Each is a rise of 65 pence, 4.8% outside London and 4.4% within it. Accredited Living Wage businesses (that have signed up with the LWF and been granted the Living Wage mark) have until 1 May 2027 to apply them.

The real Living Wage and the statutory National Living Wage are separate, and a screen business setting budgets needs to keep them apart.

• The real Living Wage is voluntary. It is calculated for the LWF on what it actually costs to live, and a business pays it by choice, usually by signing up for accreditation.
• The National Living Wage is the statutory floor that every employer must pay: £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, in force since 1 April 2026.

So a production can meet the statutory minimum in full and still sit below the real Living Wage. For someone aged 21 or over, the difference between the two is now £1.39 an hour outside London and £2.74 in London.

Much of the screen workforce is freelance and typically paid by the day, so a change to an hourly benchmark does not translate automatically into the fees a production pays. A business that has committed to the real Living Wage, or wants to, has to convert the new hourly rate into the day rates or fixed fees it actually uses, and build the uplift into any production that runs past 1 May 2027. For many businesses this is a diversity and inclusion commitment as much as a pay one, because fair pay widens who can afford to take entry level roles in the first place.

A business accredited with the LWF should budget for the new rates and apply them by the May deadline, and check that the uplift reaches everyone its accreditation covers, including the lowest paid freelance and contracted roles rather than only salaried staff.

A business that is not accredited but wants to move towards the real Living Wage can approach it as a planned commitment over time rather than a single step. Every business, accredited or not, must still pay at least the statutory National Living Wage of £12.71 for workers aged 21 and over, so the lowest paid roles should be checked against that figure as the legal baseline.

Paying the statutory rate keeps an employer on the right side of the law. Paying the real Living Wage is a separate, voluntary commitment with its own rate and its own deadline, and a business that has made it needs the new figures in its budgets now to meet them by May.